


The Best of You

by Closed_Cycle



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Drama, F/M, Humor, Murder, Mystery, Realistic, Romance, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-10-01 23:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17253515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closed_Cycle/pseuds/Closed_Cycle
Summary: In the wake of the Night Howler incident, the city of Zootopia does its best to pick up the pieces, although not everything is picked up. Loose ends rarely tie themselves and often make others. Nick and Judy will once again be forced into hardships as they attempt to solve the next big case and tie up what’s left. Great things are rarely easy to obtain, and our duo will have to decide if the ends justify the means.





	1. Officer Wilde

**Author's Note:**

> This is my go (and a late one, at that) at the whole zootopia Fanfic thing. "There are many like it but this one is mine." I plan on updating at the very least once a month. Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed.

**The Best of You**

**Chapter 1: Officer Wilde**

The stillness of the morning sat in the apartment. Small amounts of dust slowly floated in front of the bedroom window. The rays of light that slips between the curtains illuminates the little specks of dust, likes stars in the night sky. The dust slowly sinks down towards the ground only to be carried elsewhere in the room by the small air currents that most mammals hardly notice. A few particles of dust slowly float their way towards a red furred mass, gently rising and falling as the sleeping Fox breaths in and out. The speck makes the journey to the ocean of red and creamy white fur, peacefully landing between the two parted seas of color. The calm of the room settles and so does the particles of dust, but only for a moment, before being torn away from its resting place by a violent exhale of air. Nick turns over in his sleep. Sprawled across his bed he subconsciously breathes deeply in and then huffs the air out, unsettling the stillness of the room once again. Rolling over onto his other side, his claws click out and his ears flick. His paws suddenly twitch once more before quickly digging into the ground.

He’s running. Running quite possibly as fast as he has run before. The fields he ran through are covered in a rolling, golden brown wheat. The wheat slowly waves back and forth in the cool spring breeze, carrying the scent of his surroundings into his nose. The scent of wheat and Earth was carried into and then out of his nose with each breath of air his lungs suck in, trying to keep up with his sprinting pace. Another scent rested on his tongue though, a scent he reveled in every time he caught a whiff of it. The scent had a slight tanginess to it, a little earthy, but not overly powerful and an almost lavender-y aftertaste. Well, as far as Nick could guess what lavender would taste like, but If it did have a taste, this would undoubtedly be it. It made his mouth water as he chased a bouncing cottontail, leaving paths in the wheat as he ran after the one and only Judy Hopps.

Nick was getting closer and hearing Judy’s small giggles only made him run faster. The little white tail bouncing every time Judy made another bound playfully away from Nick and deeper into the field. Closing the gap, Nick could smell the thickening scent, now starting to get mixed in with a slightly, almost musky, smell of Judy’s body warming up from the running. It was easy for most canines to pick up, a giveaway odor that got produced when almost all mammals started to physically exert themselves, and Judy was no different. Nick huffed in the scent again, enjoying the smell of the youthful bunny, flaring his nostrils and he breathed out. He grinned and called out to the rabbit only a few feet away from him now.

“You might as well stop running, no need to wear yourself out now!” Nick smiled as the bouncing bunny took a quick look behind her, and then laughed.

“I would never wear myself out running from you, slick!” Judy giggled and then started to really pour the speed on, making Nick start to lag behind for a moment.

_Oh, no you don’t, cottontail, I’m not letting my prize get away from me that easily._

Nick pushed his legs down with the most power he could muster while he chuckled to himself at Judy’s quick, but admittedly good, comeback. He forced his legs straight and the momentum sends himself gracefully through the air, the maneuver reconnecting to some primal urge to pounce on prey from long ago. Nick arched his body perfectly while flying through the air while at the same moment Judy looked back again to make another stab at Nicks pride. The look on her face was priceless, as her eyes went wide, while her ears shot straight up to attention. Watching the predator smiling, bearing his sharp teeth with his tongue hanging out and claws extended as his eyes locked onto the rabbits adorable and wiggling tail. Judy squealed something in between terror and delight as she watched the leaping fox close in on her, with nothing she could do. Nicks claws closed the gap, and the now cute wiggling tail was only inches away from his paws. His paws contacted the soft fluf-

Nick bolted awake at the sound of his alarm. He twisted and turned while shooting straight up, flying out of his sleepy state eyes wide wondering who had caught himself and Judy in a more than ‘just friends’ moment. He looks around the room and then down at his alarm. He stares at it a moment. It takes a second for Nicks eyes to adjust, but the red LED lights clearly make out 5:30 a.m.

_God I’m some kinda freak, worse than a shifty fox._

Nick shakes his head and taps the alarm, shutting off its ear-piercing sound, silence quickly taking over the room again. Swinging his legs off the bed, Nick makes his way towards the bathroom, just down the hall towards the kitchen. He winces slightly from the cooler air in the short corridor that leads to the bathroom.

_The things I d- The things I’ve DONE for the Bunny, there something wrong with me. Ok slick, head in the game, first day of work, easy, good first impressions, first fox cop, no problem, no pressure._

Nick makes it to the bathroom. He looks in the mirror to see an early 30’s fox, about average height, healthy, though, he looks sleep deprived at the moment. Fairly well built, has some muscle, more than the average fox Nick likes to think. This scene would have been much different if he was looking at himself a year ago. The changes in the last year boggled his mind. He looked down past his chest and towards his waist, taking note of the noticeable bulge that pushes his black boxer’s outwards.

_Another cold shower to start the day, wonderful, at least it isn’t mating season, god, lucky I delayed that by being at the academy… Hm not over yet though, that dream was… The academy really took my mind off things, wish I had something like that now._

Nick steps away from the mirror and sink while taking off his boxers and throwing them to one side of the bathroom, onto the slowly building pile of dirty clothes. He turns on the cold water and breaths in before making the jarring step from semi warm bathroom air to cold water. The water makes Nick’s body tense up, quickly waking him up the rest of the way. He shivers before reaching down and changing the temperature to something more bearable. Grabbing for the shampoo, he makes sure to use more than enough, doing his best to wash the odd scent that covered him caused by his even odder dream.

After 20 minutes the fox is out of the shower and frustratingly trying to swipe his phone open. The humidity in the air of the now warm bathroom causing the phone to acquire a thin layer of water over the screen, making his paw swipes not register. He grumbles as he wipes the phone screen with a corner of the towel wrapped around his waist. He looks at the screen, the notification bar displaying the time, 5:58 AM and then something much more interesting, a pending message on Muzzlebook from Judy. Nick quickly taps the message.

Judy: “Better not be late on your first day! Remember to be early, no late foxes needed.”

Nick smiles and taps out a reply.

Nick: “I’ll be there 5 minutes early if you get me a coffee.”

Nick clicks the power button, blacking out the screen while walking back over to the sink. He picks up his toothbrush and starts to brush his canines, while looking into the mirror. He makes a mental note to brush his head fur, before spitting and then brushing more. His phone buzzes as his eyes quickly snap to the now lit screen, the message is from Judy.

Judy: “Only if I get to pick where we’re getting lunch.”

Nick: “Fair enough I suppose better have something other than carrots though.”

Nick glances at the time, 6:03. He needed to hurry along if he was truly holding to his words of being 5 minutes early. He finishes up brushing his teeth and then quickly brushes his head and tail fur before moving back to his bedroom. He drops his towel on the ground before rummaging through his dresser drawer for a clean pair of boxers. He finds them and struggles to put them on while walking towards his closet at the same time. He opens the sliding door of the closet and finds his new, ZPD uniform. He grabs the clothes hanger and pulls it towards himself, taking a moment to think about how his life has changed.

_Fate has a funny way of going about things I suppose. Or maybe an odd sense of humor. All because of a bunny… welp, time to go out there and… be looked at funny, I hate being nervous, doesn’t suit me._

Nick did his best to push these thoughts aside as he put on his uniform. Nick looks in the mirror after putting the uniform on and starts to make the final tweaks to it. He made sure that his shirt was tucked in well and his tie centered. Nick looks down at his badge and makes sure it is straight. The gold colored badge set proudly on his chest, what Nick likes most about the badge was what was under it. In bold letters “Nicholas P. Wilde” is printed. Nick smiles at himself in the mirror. He was finally something more than a con fox. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone to check the time, 6:09 AM. Nick then swipes open his phone to answer another Muzzlebook message from Judy.

Judy: “Deal, cream and sugar?”

Nick: “Yep, smooth and sweet, just like myself”

Judy: “Black and no sugar, got it.”

Nick chuckles at the stab while grabbing his wallet and keys off his dresser.  He then looks back at the dresser and sees his can of ‘Musk Mask’ beside his wallet. _Well that would’ve been bad, damn Wilde come on._ Nick grabs the can and sprays himself down, making sure to get the rougher areas the best, such as the armpits and around the base of his tail. Nick sets the can back on the dresser and looks in the mirror a final time. He smiles at himself and then turns towards the kitchen. Making his way through past it and to the front door. He opens it into a long hall, sporting many doors the same as his, the main difference being the number plastered to the front, though a few were sporting their own additives from the different tenants within. Turning around Nick looks at his door and then pats his pocket, double checking his keys and phone are where they should be. He locks the door and the starts his stroll towards the stairwell.

_Here we go Wilde, its show time._

A few moments later and Nick steps out of the lobby of his apartment building and onto the slightly chilly pavement of the sidewalk. A cool early morning breeze sweeps through the streets and fills Nick’s nose with the scents of a new day. The distinct smell of downtown Zootopia, stuffy, slightly trashy and with a touch of car exhaust to top it off, and of course all the odors of the different mammals that move about the streets. Nick starts his walk down the street, towards the entrances to the metros.

Looking around the street, Nick stuff his paws in his pockets and tries to relax. He looks down the sidewalk and takes notes of the funny looks he’s already getting. Most subtle, but not all. His path takes him by a Fur-Topic clothing store next to his apartment building and he takes the opportunity to look at himself in the slight reflection of the stores front window displays. Looking at the handsome Fox, Nick notes that he is clearly tense. He relaxes his shoulder more and mentally puts a little more effort into his ‘cool Fox walk’. He sighs and attempts to think of something other than the questionable looks.

_Hmm let’s see, I’ll need to pick up food later today, oh and double check my PO box, doubt there’s anything there but haven’t checked it since I left for the academy. Hm and stop by MVS for more aspirin and good ol’ Suppress Heat… hope they still have some in stock, they should, its just 2 – 3 months later then normal, yeah great, fucking wonderful._

Nick sighs realizing his thinking is making things worse. He puts his conman smile on as he walks across the street and gives a nod to a passing cougar. She smiles back at him while giving a slight wave with her paw. It was odd seeing a cougar with such darker marking on her face, but then again, it was odd for him to get waved out by one, so he passed it off. After making it across the street Nick turns down the sidewalk, following his pre-thought-out path to his destination. Nick must make his way through a small amount of the rainforest district before getting into the downtown area of Zootopia. This would be quite a way if he was strictly walking, but thanks to his apartment complex being close to the Zootopia downtown district it made the inner-city metro loop conveniently close. After a few minutes of walking he made it to the Ficus Grove station.

A small stairway with green railings leads into what seemed like the abyss. He makes his way down the lightly crowded path and into the halls, of the station. He worked his way onto the platform, moving through the light crowd of mammals getting off the subway and just making it onto the 6:15 train. He finds an open seat and takes it. Taking the moment to take a breath, he looks around the car and takes note of the few mammals. He suspected there would be few at this time, after all it is an odd time to be on the subway. Rush hour was 8:00 a.m. for most mammals. However, most accidents and police calls were made around this time as well, and Nick new that in an effort to avoid shift changes at these peak times of emergency shift changes were done early or late of prime rush times. Nick looked over to the other end of the car and took note of an exhausted looking tiger. He figured he must be just getting done with work, he wondered what odd job he had, or perhaps he was just out partying all night, it was hard for Nick to tell from the distance.

The ride, to his surprise, went by quickly. While the number of mammals on the car did increase the end of the ride the number of funny, or surprised looks at the first fox officer on his first day didn’t increase that much. Or maybe he was getting use to it, he couldn’t tell yet. The train stops at station and Nick makes his way out of the crowd and back onto the street smoothly, being small did have its perks from time to time. Getting more comfortable now with the unusual number of eyes on him he slows his stride slightly to something closer to what his normal pace is. After a few moments his ears perk towards a familiar sound. A deep, scruffy voice, certainly a smoker. Nick looks up and notices a familiar looking Fennec Fox up ahead behind a water cooler stuffed with snow and Pawpsicles. Nicks smirk covers his face as he approaches the unaware fox.

“Well well well, selling Pawpsicles, got a permit to for that?” Nick lets the words smoothly roll off his tongue and takes note of Finnick’s comically large ears twitching from the sound of his voice. He quickly turns around to see a smirking Nick.

“Damn Nick, what’s with the getup? Been running cons without me for the last couple of months?” Finnick looks back at Nick who begins his theatrical performance of a heart broken mammal.

“I’m wounded you would think such an upstanding mammal as myself would ever con another, and to think I would impersonate an officer of the law? Who do you take me for?” Nick places the back of his paw over his forehead while his other turns up and out away from his body.

“Hahaha, now me and you both know that ain’t true Nicky, so “Carrots” really has tricked you into working with the fuzz? I thought you were just lying to me when you said you were going off to the academy and were really running cons without me.” Finnick now turns fully towards Nick on the box he is standing on behind his makeshift Pawpsicle stand.

“Judy hasn’t tricked me into doing anything, I really did want to go, and contrary to popular belief I’m a real cop, swear it, sc-.” Finnick cuts Nick off.

“Yeah yeah, scouts honor, you know I’d appreciate if you leave, bad for business having a cop around.” Finnick crosses his arms with a slightly annoyed look while Nick puts his paws back into his pockets.

“Aww come on now Finnick, don’t be like that. Surely you want daddy to stay and visit? Need an excuse to put on the elephant suit again?” Nicks smirk grows as his friend gets more agitated than normal.

“As much as I hate to admit it Nick, money hasn’t been as easy to come by after you left, its hard to run the Pawpsicle con without a second hand, and joey’s shit for help so don’t suggest that, so yeah matter of fact this ‘I’m a new mammal, I’ve changed’ act has been pretty shitty if you ask me” Finnick huffs, his ears slightly drooping form his small speech.

“Well, hate to break it to you Fin but It isn’t an act, and it is for the better, no more cons Finnick, that’s behind me, I’m trying to do the right thing now. What’s so bad about that.” Nick moves his elbow out with his hand still in his pocket, opening his chest up in an asking pose. A shit eating grin develops on Finnicks face.

“Damn Nicky, didn’t know you were that into rabbits, I know foxes use to chase prey and all but, all the way through the academy, police station and into the squad car? Is her tail really that good?” Finnick smirks at the wide-eyed Nick before he quickly recovers his posture and attempts to smile at the joke but fails miserably. Nick does his best to push out the memory of his latest dream, which was all to fitting for the situation to be funny in the slightest, even for Nick.

“Now Finnick, do we need to revisit that memory of you hitting on that elephant at the shaking paw? If you think my NON- existing tail chasing is bad, you should have seen yourself when she started dancing on stage in that mini ski-” Nick gets cut off by Finnick.

“Nick, you go any further and I’ll bite your face off, I was piss drunk. And it ain’t like I bought stilts and gained 1,000 pounds for her either, ‘Officer Wilde’.” Finnick air quotes while he says his last words, drawing a tight-lipped frown for Nick.

“Look Finnick, as much as you want me to be into floppy ears, I’m not, we are friends, nothing more, and don’t be mad at me for turning my life around either, you could do it too! And you’ll be seeing me around, I haven’t left my favorite son” Nick tries to ruffle the fur on top of Finnick’s heads but gets his paw slapped away.

“Just friends yeah, sure Nick, I know your sick and twisted and if there’s anybody that would be into some kinda pred-prey shit it’d be you. Oh, and speaking of that I take it you liked that gift I got DADDY for an early Father’s Day, huh?” Finnick smirks at Nick, who looks thoroughly puzzled.

“What gift?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, you know you liked it.”

“No really, what gift?”

“Ah come on Nick, playing totally dumb ain't like you, its fine if you just threw it away, I expected you too.” The Fennec fox chuckles as the thought of Nick actually reading and looking through the ‘gift’ was even better than the gag itself.

“Finnick, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The magazine, I put it in your PO box at your new apartment.”

“Oh well that would explain it, haven’t looked in that since I left for the academy buddy. Been too busy filling out paperwork before my first day, and hey speaking of that, I gotta get going, police stuff to do, y’know?” Nick smiles at Finnick and starts his stroll around the Pawpsicle stand while plucking one from the cooler.

“Hey, those ain't free for nobody, even for you!” Finnick grumbles back, forgetting there banter about the ‘gift’ as quickly as it came up.

“I’m letting you off with a warning buddy, and I’ll be taking this as payment, be seeing you around soon!” Nick keeps walking away from Finnick while taking out his aviators from his front shirt pocket.

“Hey! Warning and payment for what? I ain’t broke any laws!” Finnick shouts back. Nick looks back over his shoulder at this statement and smirks.

“Felony tax evasion, you and me both buddy.” Nick winks at the fennec fox, his mouth hanging open wide, Nick snaps his aviators open and puts them on. Finnick quickly closes his mouth and slightly snarls at the red fox, before he turns and starts strolling away.

Nick chuckles to himself as he keeps making his way down the street, Pawpsicles in paw. He licks it and feels a bit of nostalgia hit him. Those day were gone for good now, petty cons use to be all he knew, working all day just to make enough money to get by the next day. It was hard, got repetitive and if he was honest with himself, it made him feel awful at the end of the day. He had never done anything to bad, sure tax evasion, and he had done more than his fair share of selling stolen items to questionable mammals in pawn shops. He figured the worst trouble he had gotten himself into was with Mr. Big, which was bad, but that was behind him now, he had made sure of that. He had always wanted to do what was right, that’s why he wanted to join the scouts, that now seems like an eternity ago. But after that wonderful experience, why try to see the best in others while nobody did the same for him?

Nick ponder his past way of thinking while making the 2nd to last turn needed to reach his destination. He licks the Pawpsicle again, still lost in thought. Trying his best to pick out the smiles in his walk and not focus on the other looks he’s picking up. He shakes his head and keeps walking down the sidewalk. He looks around, scanning for anything to absently ponder about, preferable something fun and not complicated. Glancing across the street he catches two female wolves pointing at him. One starts to get her phone out while the other excitedly pats her friend on the shoulder. The Fox chuckles to himself at the sight, while the one wolf finally gets her phone ready to take the picture. Nick turns towards them and give a slight wave while also putting on a toothy grin, he had heard most female wolves had a thing for this and judging from their reaction this was true. They excitedly looked at one another while wagging their tails, the one with the phone immediately showing the other wolf the picture. Nick turns the last corner and makes it to the stretch of sidewalk that his destination is on. He mentally prepares himself for the worst, the only good thing about police stations was getting to walk out of them, Finnick had once told Nick, and he had always remembered this.

He finally makes it to the door of the ZPD headquarters. Nick opens the door and sees Judy standing on a chair at the front desk talking to an almost comically large cheetah. A wave of relief hits him, at least he wouldn’t have to find her in the jungle of police. Looking around at the rest of the inside he sees a variety of mammals. All larger predators, for the most part, many different wolfs, lions, tigers, a hippo and an elephant. The main lobby is huge, made to accommodate many mammals of different sizes. But not to forgiving of the smaller sizes like himself and especially a rabbit. Judy and the cheetah seem very wrapped up in their conversion, so Nick kept his approach as a surprise for the time being.

“Oh, Clawhauser, he’s late! A whole minute late! Ugh that’s just like him!” Judy sighs and her ears slightly droop to either side.

“Oh, come on Judy he’s not late, it 4 minutes until call, he’s got time.” Clawhauser looks down at his desk and into his donut box, eyeing his next pastry.

“But he told me he would be here 5 minutes early, he promised actually! Urrrgh.” Judy grumbles and rubs her ears with both paws, laying them back against her head.

“Now carrots, in my defense, when I opened the door I was 5 minutes early, so technically I held true to my word.” Nick smirks as Judy quickly turns around, her ears lagging behind and slightly shaking once she stops moving her head. She smiles wide and jumps off the chair.

“NICK!” Judy yells as she makes her leap from the chair and into Nick. He does his best to catch her in midair as she makes her surprise hug. He wraps his arms around her midsection, trying hard not to drop his paws any lower then friends while not growing any redder than he already is. Judy wraps her arms around his neck and above his shoulders as her head slips to the side of Nick’s, just blow his jaw. He almost hated how well they fit together, it was like having a taste of a good cake but never being able to eat it. _Fate does seem to have a very odd sense of humor._ Nick thinks as he carefully spins to the side and bends down to lower her to the ground.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening, I’ve waited so long for you to get here Nick!” Judy says as her hind paws meet the cool linoleum floor. Reaching the floor her right foot starts to thump the ground happily while her now free hands shoot up and into her chest. Her ears cheerfully perk up, matching the rest of her posture.

“I’m happy to see you too, and this better be happening because I’ve put in too much work for it not to be.” Nick chuckles and carefully finishes sitting her down, making sure to keep his paws in check and then taking a slight step away. Nick looks around and takes note of the now odd looks he’s getting from many of the officers around the lobby. Most smiles, some confused looks, at least one slightly concerned gaze, Nick mentally shook the nervousness out of his mind. He had figured that his first day would go about like this, there seemed to be quite a lot of talk about the first fox officer, and the surprise hug from Judy didn’t help any.

“Nick, you’re still a minute late!” Judy playful hits him on the shoulder.

“He like I said, I walked in at 6:55 and besides, I ran into Finnick on my way here, see?” Nick holds up the Pawpsicles that he had been leisurely licking.

“Hmm well I would be mad at you, but I guess it evens it out because I have bad news about your coffee…” Judy puts her paws together and rings them.

“What, did you get black with no sugar?” Nick lets out a small laugh and follows Judy as she starts to walk towards the lobby desk with a cheetah behind it.

“No, they messed up the order and I didn’t notice till it was to late so it’s an iced coffee, not a regular, sorry!” Judy jumps up on the chair and gets the iced coffee from a drink holder and passes it down to Nick.

“Eh no problem carrots, it’ll go well with my Pawpsicle.”

“Oh my gosh, Judy! Did you hear him! He called you carrots!” Clawhauser looks at Judy with a shocked expression, even better than Nick could pull off on a good day. The fox honestly couldn’t decide if it was real or fake.

“It’s ok, she likes it” the fox smirks at Judy who rolls her eyes and then looks at Clawhauser.

“I let him slide most of the time, and I do call him dumb, so I guess it works out. But as I’m sure you now know, this is Nick!”

“Nice to meet you” Nick holds his paw up and out, doing his best to make it just over the counter top of the main desk the cheetah sits behind. The big cat gladly extends his paw to meet nick’s and shakes it.

“Clawhauser, and It’s nice to finally meet you I’ve heard a _lot_ about you!” Clawhauser leans over the desk to look at Nick while letting go of his paw.

“Oh really? Good things I hope?” Nick chuckles as Clawhauser grins.

“The only time I don’t hear something good about you is the days Judy isn’t here! Which is only on the weekends, oh and come to think she even texts me over th-”

“CLAWHAUSER!” Judy yells in panic.

“Oh, does she really now? What all does she have to say, hmm?” Nick looks over at Judy and puts on his trademark smirk. Judy groans and pulls her ears back behind her head with her paws. This is exactly the kind of thing Nick loves to tease her about.

“Clawhauser! oh wow, look at the time we gotta go, only got 3 minutes until roll call!” Judy places both her paws on the desk and gives the cheetah a less than friendly look.

“Aww come on, I haven’t even gotten my incorrect coffee.” Nick takes another lick of his Pawpsicles and looks at Judy.

“Oh sorry!” Judy reaches over the desk and grabs the iced coffee off out of the cup holder and passes it down to Nick. Nick looks at it questionable and then back up to Judy.

“Rabbit sized?”

“What do you mean?”

“The drink is rabbit sized, I think?”

“Urgh Nick I told you they messed up the order.” Judy looks down at nick with a sideways smile and Nick rolls his eyes. Nick takes a sip of the iced coffee and to his surprise it was actually pretty good, he made a mental note to investigate these more.

“And besides, they probably assumed I was getting it for another rabbit, ha-ha.” Judy reaches back over the counter and grabs her coffee as well, missing Nick ears twitch at her response.

“This will take me like four sips? This is the size of something I would get as a kit.” Nick attempts to force out a chuckle while Judy looks down from here chair.

“No, it is not, and we got to go! Don’t want to be late on your first day, come on.” Judy jumps down from her chair and lands beside Nick. She motions with her paw for him to follow and he waste no time in doing so. Nick looks around the building for a moment, taking note of how massive it is. Made for mammals many times bigger than himself, it made him feel very small. He supposed it made sense though, needing to take in everything from Weasel to elephant the facility needed to make accommodations for such circumstances. The open floor plan was fairly modern and must have very good upkeep. The bottom floor is the biggest and most open, and Nick could tell as the floors went up that they decreased in height. This was a common weight distribution plan, especial in structures that were made to take in all types of mammals. The bottom floor was made the biggest in terms of height, and its weight restrictions are the most generous, being able to take mammals up to 15,000 pounds in weight. While not many African elephants ran around Zootopia, if one did happen to get arrested, this place needs to be able to take them in.

The second floor seemed to take everything from cape buffalo and down, as well as the third, as far as Nick could tell, and then finally the fourth taking wolf and down. While not a big change in height, the real difference came in weight requirements. Wolfs, while still large mammals, coming up to the average buffalo’s shoulder, were very thin and weighed significantly less than buffalos. Nick looks around at the upper levels and noted all the looks he was getting. Many mammals had stopped what they were doing and were looking from the above balconies down at himself and Judy making their way towards the bull pen. Nick quickly looked away from the upper levels and at the back of his partner, which in hindsight just made things worse, as he forced his eyes to not look lower than the back of her head.

Nick looked down at his coffee and then his Pawpsicles which he couldn’t finish before he got to the bullpen. Not wanting to get any more looks then the first fox officer ever, he didn’t want to add anymore with the ‘first fox officer ever that also had a Pawpsicles on his first day of work.’ He sighs and sucks down the last of his ice coffee through his straw. He skillfully pops open the lid to the cup with one paw and places the cold snack into the container. He pops the lid back on and continues following Judy to the bullpen.

A few turns deeper in the ZPD headquarters and they finally make it to the bullpen. Nick attempts to mentally prepare himself for what’s inside and tries to stop and think a moment outside the door, but Judy quickly foals his plans of preparing by throwing open the door and given Nick no time. He quickly picks up his pace and walks close behind Judy, his heart starts to pound as he walks through the door, easily four times his height. As the door was slightly open and the rabbit and fox pair made their way inside it was clear that the mammals inside were quite rowdy. A large amount of noise came from inside whether it be overly loud talking or grows and hisses from the various officers inside. This made Nicks nervousness grow, not only was he in a room full of cops, but they were all acting, relaxed and for the most part seem to be fooling around like him and his friends do. This was very new to him and seemed so out of place.

The fox and rabbit made their way across the front of the room, easily missed by the other officer, the large tables in the room rose much taller than them. As they turned the rows of desk made Judy stops in front of a chair much larger then herself and than turns to Nick, she opens her mouth to speak but is cut off.

“Hey! I smell a new guy, where is he?” A wolf yells from the what seems to be the third row of seats, near the back, as best as Nick could tell. Judy easily hops up on the chair in front of her and the up to the table where all the officer could see her.

“Its Nick! He finally made it out of the academy!” Judy says excitedly.

At this, the room erupted into a mix of woofs and hollers of excitement mixed with questions all asked at the same time. From “Where is he I can’t see him” to “And this is the fox that helped you catch bellwether!?”

“Nick come on, get up here!” Judy looks down at Nick to see a slight panic in his eyes. Judy smirks and gets a frown from Nick before he bins down to set his ice coffee cup on the floor beside the chair legs. He reaches up and grabs the chair and pulls himself up. He then gets up on the table beside Judy and turns to face the rest of the room.

“Hello everyone.” Nick lets out after a moment of hesitation, he puts on his trademark con-mammal smile and does his best to relax. The rest of the officers in the room all smiled and said some greeting or another, seeming to be genuinely happy with their newest addition.

“Tell us about yourself, Nick!” The wolf from early shouts from the third row. The room gets quiet again as every mammal waits for the first fox officer’s response.

“Well, as all of you know, I am the first fox officer, but more importantly, I am the most handsome and cunning officer on the force by far.” Nick smirks and takes a sidelong glance at Judy who just rolls her eyes. The fox’s nerves ease as most of the mammals in the room chuckle or laugh from his self-absorbed personality.

 “Sorry Nick, buddy, but I think most handsome has to go to our friend Fangmeyer. He brought in this drunk Tigress last week and she was all over him, even made me jealous a little bit.” The wolf laughed with the rest of the room as Fangmeyer groaned and covers his muzzle with his paw.

“Jesus, Wolford let it go! She was disrupting the peace, I swear, look at the report and beside I’m married!” Fangmeyer crosses his arms and slightly flashes his teeth at Wolford.

“Ahhh married don’t mean anything, especially when that tiger was so cute.” Wolford laugh some more, and Nick quickly interjects.

“Carrots! You didn’t tell me I get to pawcuff hot babes and then tell them what to do!” Nick slips into his “theatrical fox persona”, as Judy likes to call it, as he somewhat convincingly acts hurt and slightly upset. Wolford laughs the most out of the room as the door opens and in walks a hippo dressed in more formal police wear. He scans the room and locks onto the fox and rabbit standing on the table.

“Officer Hopps and Officer Wilde! Off the table and into your chairs. The rest of you cut the chatter, Bogo is on his way. Officer Wolford and Fangmeyer, report to the armory after Chief Bogo gives you your assignments. Also, Officer Wilde report there to receive your teaser and officer Hopps report there as well to check your tranquilizer. Officer Higgins, you and Fangmeyer must go to bookkeeping and go over your write up of a suspect the other day, there has been progress on the case. Also officer Higgins, Marry believes you left your field jacket at the booking desk. Bogo will give the rest of the assignments for the day.” The hippo drops his check list to his side and makes his way towards a front row seat at the corner of the room. Judy hops down from the table and into her seat and Nick follows. He scans the room for an empty seat, but there is none, he then turns towards Judy.

“Looks like will have to be sharing a seat.” He looks over at her with that smug face he almost always wears.

“Seems like it, slick.” Judy lets the words roll off her tongue.

“Good thing it’s made for someone 10 times are size.” Nick mutters as he looks towards the front of the room again. The hippo kept flipping through his clipboard, presumable checking his notes. His uniform was more for show as far as Nick could tell and less practical than his. Nick ponders he is some kind of Chief in training, or at least some higher up manager position he was far away from. He considered himself lucky he got into precinct one right out of the academy. He guessed he got here from a combination of Judy asking for him to be her partner specifically, his better than average scores in the academy and the attempt to clean-up the public relations problem that was the “savage predators” situation Bellwether had caused. Whatever had the most pull dragging him to his current position he didn’t know, but he felt very lucky to be where he is nonetheless.

The door to the briefing room fly’s open, and the one and only Chief Bogo walks into the room. The chatter in the room kept going on between the officer except Nick and Judy, who watches as Bogo walk up to the podium in the front center of the room. He seemed unphased by the noise and walked straight to the podium.

“alight alright, ENOUGH. Shut it!” Bogo yells, the rest of the room grows quite as full attention is give to the cape buffalo.

“We have some new recruits with us this morning, including our first fox… Who cares.” The chief looks down at his note. Most all the officers in the room chuckle at the jab. Nick quickly comes up with a comeback and spits it out.

“HA you should have your own line of inspirational greeting cards, sir.” Nick smirks at Bogo as more officer laugh or lit out small chuckles. Some seemed impressed at the fox’s ability to shoot comebacks at the chief. Even Judy looks over at him and gives a small chuckle to herself. Nick loved making her laugh.

“Shut your mouth Wilde! Assignments, Officer Grizzoli, Fangmeyer, Delgato tundra town swat. Snarlov, Higgins, Wolfard, undercover. Hopps, Wilde… parking duty.” The other officers get up and leave as their called except for nick and Judy, who both had upset and shocked faces respectfully. Nicks mouth hangs open as a flood of thoughts hit him as he gets put on parking duty. Had he really done so much work to get here all just to be put on parking duty.

 “Just kidding! We have reports of a street racer tearing up savanna central. Find him, shut him down.” Nick snaps his mouth shut and leans back slightly, the chief had got both of them good, he had to admit it.

“Also, Hopps, report to my office before you check out today.” Bogo seems to pause, he reads a little further into his papers on his clipboard and rubs his chin with his hoof. He appears to be undecided about some option. After a moment, he raises his head back up and speaks. “Wilde, you do the same. Dismissed.”

Judy jumps down from the chair and Nick follows suit. He hits the ground a little harder then the rabbit, making a solid thud as he lands. Judy looks over her shoulder and smirks. Nick frowns and slightly shakes his head side to side while laying his ears back. He was getting older, sure, but he wasn’t that old. Nick picks up his coffee cup and follows Judy close behind, not wanting to get lose in the sea of moving legs from much larger mammals. Judy navigates these potential hazards unphased, which strikes Nick as fairly impressive. He knew she had grown up in bunny burrow, which housed mainly rabbit species, most being cottontails, and the few other small mammals such as otters or minks but for the most part just rabbits. Hints the name ‘Bunny Burrow’. While Zootopia had everything from the small humble field mouse to the ever so graceful elephant. The street could be dangerous for smaller mammals though often it was more scary walking around others up to 50 times your own body weight. Judy seemed to have mastered this though despite only livening in Zootopia just a little over a year. They make their way out of the bullpen and towards what Nick supposed this was the armory, they both had to go there after all.

After a few minutes of walking through the interior of the ZPD headquarters they come to a seeming pointless hallway with a step stool and a few chairs. Judy begins her way down the hallway and Nick follows suit. Upon closer inspection the hallway actually had a small counter and a barred off window behind it. They is a larger chair set to the side of the window with a smaller mammal sized step stool beside it. Judy walks right up to the step stool and goes up it and then up to the chair. Standing on the chair her chest was level with the counter, she looks down at nick who was still standing on the floor.

“Slick, don’t tell me your getting slow, come up here and get your taser!”

“You should have said that’s what we’re getting sooner! Always wanted wanna these to play with.” Nick smirks at Judy who rollers her eyes before looking through the window of the armory. Nick walks up the step stool and then takes the bigger step onto the chair.

“Hey Brock, how’s it going!” Judy cheerfully greets a white wolf from behind the bars of the window. The wolf spins around at the greeting and smiles wildly when he sees Judy and Nick.

“Hey Judy! Nice to see you as always, and its looks like you finally brought your friend! I’m assuming you must be Nick, nice to meet you, heard a lot about ya.” The wolf smiles and extends his paw through a slot cut lower in the bars. Nick takes his paw and attempts to give a firm handshake to the wolf, even though his paw was much bigger than his.

“Mammals keep telling me that and I’m really hoping it’s not a bad thing.” Nick smiles and let’s go. He looks behind the wolf at the rows and racks of various arms and guns behind the him.

“It is a good thing, I doubt there is many that haven’t heard of you, you know, what? saving the city and all or something like that?” Brock grins and puts his paws on the counter while leaning forward a bit.

“Ah whiskers here did all the work, I was just the sidekick.”

“Nick, that’s not true!”

“It is, I keep telling you that, but you won’t listen.” Nick leans against the counter as well and looks back over at Brock.

“Welp, Judy is pretty hard headed, I know this first hand, but it is good things were hearing, Nick, there might be a few that have their doubt, sure, but, as a whole, your welcome under this roof.” The wolfs gives a genuine smile at Nick, who does his best to return the gesture, somewhat unsure of how to replicate this unusually friendliness.

“Anyways, just like everyone else, you came for the toys and not to chit chat, I’ll get your taser Nick and what are you here for Judy? Making sure Wilde doesn’t get lost?” The wolf chuckles at himself.

“Well their will always be that…” Judy looks over at Nick who rolls his eyes. “But, I need to get my tranqs checked and make sure they don’t need to be replaced.” The wolfs face lights up while his ears perk up a little.

“Ah yes, it’s that time again isn’t it? Well hey at least you two will be getting checked at the same time then, that will be easy, you two are using the same size tranqs.” Judy unholsters her tranquilizer gun and carefully places it on the counter, the wolf behind it takes it and then disappears into the room behind the barded window. A few moments later he comes back with Judy’s gun and black box. He sets them both on the counter.

“Your trang was just on the edge of expiration, so I went ahead and switched out the juice. Nick, this your taser, its slightly different then the one you used in the academy, the notes on the forms said you used a version of the F3 taser, like Judy has?” Brock looks up from his clipboard and at Nick for confirmation.

“Yeah, it was way too small for my paws, I mean, it was basically made for a _bunny”_ Nick glance over at Judy who not so quietly huffs. “So, I’m not sure what they were thinking, but they claimed my actually service taser would be a little bigger and more suited for my size, or the grips would be bigger.”

“Yeah that’s pretty much what that says, alrighty cool, and you remember the terms for getting your lethal correct?” Brock scratches behind his ear with his paw while placing the clipboard somewhere below the counter on the other side.

“3 months of active service, no problems with detaining or handling mammals in the field, then cleared for my antlow F1.” Nick smirks as Brock slides him his taser case under the bars.

“Good man, your two don’t have too much fun now.”

“See ya Brock! Have a good day.” Judy hops down from the chair and onto the step ladder. Nick careful follows suit.

“Nice meeting you Nick, don’t let that rabbit get you into too much trouble now.” The wolfs puts on a sly smile.

“Ah, its much too late for that, _She’s_ the one who gets _me_ into trouble.” The wolf laughs while Nick grabs the box off the counter, he then hops off the chair and onto the step stool. He makes it to the ground with another step and quickens his walking pace to catch up to Judy with the box in his paws. He walks beside Judy and matches her pace in the empty halls.

“Man, this place clears out quick, where are we headed too now?” Nick looks around the halls, taking in the unfamiliar scenery.

“Yeah once the briefing is done most mammals that stay in the building are either in offices or downstairs near the lobby, not back near the armory or storage and where headed towards the garage to get to our squad car! Oh, Nick this is our first day together, aren’t you excited!?” Judy playfully hits Nicks shoulder and puts a hop in her step, putting her ahead of him.

“Ow, that hurt, and yes, I am excited, I finally have my taser.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be all smarty fox with me now, I have waited forever for you to get here! And now I finally get to talk to you in person and not over text so this much better. And at the very least I finally have a real partner” Judy happily smiles while bouncing with each step she takes. The items on her belt slightly shake up and down from the movement.

“I know I know, but hey, thanks for waiting, it feels nice to uh… finally have a real, upstanding job.” Nick skews his ears slightly while looking at Judy as she turns to face him. She gave a genuine smile, something Nick adores about her.

“Of course, Nick, I would have waited longer if I needed to.” She smiled big, which slightly showed her buck teeth, Nick always thought this was slightly funny and somehow, oddly, very appealing, but he hid his amusement well.

“Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say; emotional things were never his strong suit.

They make their way through the hallways of the ZPD. They passed by a few mammals on the way, Judy giving greetings and Nick following suit. Most seemed interested in the first fox officer but not as much as the officer he meets in the bullpen. Nick figures this was because he wouldn’t be working with them on a regular basis. All types of ZPD members came through the headquarters, and for many being in the building was just to exchange files or go to meetings, sense sets they came from another district. After a few minutes of walking, they made it to a large elevator, made to take mammals up to the largest size. A small, and very new looking, panel sat at the height of Judy and she called the elevator with it. For the looks of the lightly used panel, it seemed very much so that it was added specifically for the rabbit. Nick stood beside her and a few moment later the elevator doors opened revealing a room big enough to fit an elephant in, literally. The pair step inside and ascend into the upper levels of the compound.


	2. The Flash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed.

**The Best of You**

**Chapter 2: The Flash**

The Smooth, cool concrete was something Nicks hind paws rarely contacted. Pavement and common sidewalk concrete is all too familiar, but the new, parking lot complex material felt oddly off to him. He follows Judy, carrying his new taser which is held within its carrying case and his cup of Pawpsicle, to wherever she was taking them. After a few moments of walking he was about to speak up when Judy stops behind a police car and turns to him.

“Well? What do you think!?” she clasps her paws together and slightly stands up on her toes for a second, Nick hides his excitement at her cute gesture and looks to his right, taking in the truly massive size of the cruiser

“This cant possible be your car.” He looks at Judy who smirks.

“It’s OUR car now, slick, and yeah, I guess cracking one of the biggest cases in Zootopia really gave us some perks didn’t it?”

“You use that term ‘us’ very loosely but yes this is a very massive car, I am looking forward to ramming through buildings with it.”

“Hey, you did just as much for the case as I did! I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you!”

“Ah come on fluff, we both know you’d figure it out on your own sooner or later, I was just your side kick but enough of that, come on, I wanna see if I can even climb into this thing, and I need to put my taser on.” Before she could launch into her rebuttal, he walks out of her view beside around the car towards the passage door. she sighs and makes a mental note to bring this topic up again, she wasn’t going to let him half himself that easily. She reaches into her pocket and clicks the key fob for their cruiser to unlock. The car clicks and emits a few quick beeps and the fox swiftly opens the door with one paw.

The police cruiser is huge, as far as Nick is concerned. The bottom of his seat was level with his head and it seems to be a challenge at first glance to get into. After giving it a good look over he found that there is well place steps and bars to grab onto to get into the vehicle easily and they are conveniently painted in stripes of yellow and black. He easily navigates the steps and gets into the cruiser with his coffee cup of pawsicle and taser. He sits in the seat and looks around, the thing that stands out the most to him was the welding done to the interior of the vehicle to accept the new seats and redone computer mount. This was most obviously, at one point in time, a squad car for mammals much bigger than themselves, most likely tigers, or maybe wolfs, as far as he could tell.

Nick stands on the new metal plate welded to the inside of the cruiser. It is a well thought out design but lacks a finish, making it seem much more haphazardly thrown together than it is. He turns his attention back to the box in his paws after placing his cup between the seats. He opens the box and saw exactly what he was expecting, a taser, much like the one he had trained with in the academy. He carefully picks it up out of its case, gripping it firmly. He flips it over and looks at the markings on the side and serial number. The matte black metal and polymer are well constructed for a first model he thought. While the overall design of his gun was the same as Judy’s taser, his was somewhat larger to fit the size of his paws. While it wasn’t the first taser made of its kind it was the first official, duty ready one, and the look of the gun shows. No smudges, scratches or imperfections in the finish on the metal or polymer parts of the gun and to top it off it fit very well in his paw. The engineers behind the police department have seemed to really listen to his suggestions when they asked him about it. He clearly remembered the first model that they had put together for him in training, it was functional but was very rough looking. He smiles and sets the gun back into its slot in the box before getting out its hard-plastic holster. He sets the holster on top of the open plastic box before reaching for his belt. Undoing his belt and the top buttons on his pants.

“What are you doing?” Judy looks over at him with a somewhat amused smile as items fall from his belt and into the floor of the cruiser.

“I’m putting my taser on my belt, what do you think?” Nick removes the rest of his belt from his pants and begins threading the holster onto it.

“Couldn’t you have just waited till you were in a rest room or something?”

“Oh, come on I’m not taking off my pants and I need this! This is the only reason I sighed up to be on the force, remember?” He smirks at Judy who just shakes her head. Nick focuses his attention onto the holster and belt again, making sure it is oriented correctly. Judy looks back over at him, she watches him as he attempts to figure out how to properly thread his duty belt into his holster, which he is doing backwards at the moment. Judy internally laughs. She starts to say something but draws a blank when her eyes wonder over to Nick’s mid sections

His beltless pants have fallen slightly, and his shirt has become untucked in his haste to undo his belt. Judy’s eyes slowly move down from the Fox’s midsection to his crotch. His lower, cream colored stomach fur pokes out between his shirt and unbuttoned pants. He is much more in shape than she last remembered him being in. The Police academy really did make a difference on him physically at the least she is sure. He turns away from her and bends down to pick up the things he had dropped, and Judy couldn’t help but stare.

His pants slide even further down, and her eyes grow as his boxers come into view. Her eyes travel to the base of his tail, she stares at the small bit of fabric that loops over it. It was so odd for her, she had paid attention in anatomy in high school of course, she got straight A’s in everything, but they had barely touched on anything other than rabbits. Seeing more of him than what she had ever seen before was strangely both exciting and frightening at the same time. Nicks tail swishes back and forth while his paw shoot up to his waist to keep his pants from falling any further. He stands back up straight and turns back to his side all while trying to re-thread his belt into his pants. Judy quickly tares her gaze away from him as her ears run hot. She stares into the concrete wall in front of their car while squeezing the string wheel.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. DON’T THINK ABOUT IT. What is wrong with me?!_

Judy takes a glance back over at him and finds that he had us figured out the proper way to put his holster on and that he had fixed his clothing situation. He looks down at himself and smiles before looking over to Judy who does her best to return the grin. She tries to suppress the odd feelings swirling in her stomach about her Fox partner while she sticks the key into the ignition and puts the cruiser into reverse. A relief finally washes over her as she realizes he hadn’t caught her staring.

               “If I’m honest carrots, I look pretty damn good in police attire, wouldn’t you say?” Nick smirks at her for a moment before clicking his seat belt into place.

               “You're so full of yourself, you know that?” Judy does her best to focus on driving through the parking complex of the ZPD headquarters.

               “Oh you know you wouldn’t want me any other way!” He smiles while pushing himself back into his seat to get comfortable and then getting his pawsicle out of his cup.

               “Sureeeeee slick.” She smiles while pulling out of the parking complex and into the outer parking lot of the police station. She carefully navigates the lot and makes it to the main exit onto the street which features a stop light. The traffic lights were very usefully when a real emergency was happening, and many vehicles needed to exit the ZPD headquarters unhindered by the traffic on the main road. They would simply make all the lights red and give themselves the right of way, but today was no emergency and Judy patiently waits at the light. After some time, the unusual duo made their way through the streets, getting to Savanna Central and then their patrol area. The rabbit notes that her partner was unusually quiet for the drive over to their beat. She ponders this while she makes a turn off onto a side road. She scans the streets out of habit, something that Wolford had taught her to idly do. It is a helpfully habit for the most part and helps to remind her to keep check of her surrounding, especially the mammals within it.

               Judy finishes mindlessly scanning one street side and out of habit switches to the next. Her eyes cross over the road in front of her that she was more or less paying attention to. Their cruiser quickly comes up on another vehicle in the road and Judy lays on the breaks. Not enough to skid, but differently enough to spill a coffee if she had one in her lap. She looks more closely at the car in front of her and sees that it was just trying to park on the street and almost got re-ended by a police car. _That would have been bad_ she thinks. The car makes its through its parallel parking unharmed, much quicker than she could do herself, she notices and then they were back on their way. She makes it almost to the end of the road when Nick finally speak up.

“So, are all rabbits bad drivers, or is it just you?” Nick looks over at Judy and smirks. There it is, she thought, the smug Fox makes his entrance. He goes to lick his pawsicle again but is thrusted forward suddenly. The pawsicle misses his mouth and flies straight into his eye, his seatbelt barely catches him before his muzzle hits the glove box.

“Ops, sorry.” Judy smirks with her ears held high. The fox does his best to sit back up while pulling the Pawpsicle off his face.

“Hehe, sly bunny.”

“Dumb fox.” Judy chimes.

“You know you love me.” He points his pawsicle accusingly at his fellow Rabbit officer but pauses. He didn’t meant for that to sound the way it did. He hadn’t meant for that to come out at all.

_Oh shit_

“Do I know that?” Nick stares at the bunny, unmoving. He watches her in frozen terror as she seems to contemplate what he had said. Surely, she took this as a joke, he didn’t mean anything by what he said.

“yes, yes I do.” The Rabbit attemptes her best smirk yet, and it seems to be just that. She had to hand it to herself, seeing the opportunity to turn Nick’s joke around like that was prefect timing, and a bit of luck with the traffic light being red already. The enduring comment made her happy as well, it was extremely common for bunnies to tell one another they loved their friends and it seemed Foxes were no different in that regard as well, Judy deduced. _The more you know, well that or it was another one of his endless carefree comments, either way,_ she thought.

She looks straight ahead and smiles at her little victory. Her partner was only as smooth as she would allow him to be and getting him would put him in his place. The traffic light turns green and she smoothly accelerates. Suddenly, a blur of red streaks through the intersection, running a red light. She slams on the breaks to avoid getting t-boned and the speeding car nearly misses the front of the cruiser. She glances over at Nick and smiles. This was going to be it, there first traffic stop, which would then cause there first ticket giving and then there first write up and paper work! Judy’s beaming with excitement as Nick flicks on the lights and sirens. she steps on the gas.

Pilling out into intersection they make chases after the speeding car. After a moment or two of catching up to the car it quickly slows down and stops at the first most suitable spot to pull over at. The car was some type of new sports car, as far officer Hopps could tell so she new this was most likely their street racer. She pulls in behind the car and gets her ticket writing material out of the console.

“Damnnnn carrots, we clocked him going 115! And he ran a red light, looks like we got a serious reckless driving ticket on our paws.” Nick taps the DSR on the dash of their cruiser and double checks that it did indeed display 115 mph.

“Yeah, definitely reckless driving, looking like hill get a suspended license for sure. possible even jail time depending. You want to right the ticket?” Judy looks over at him while she unbuckles.

“No no, I insist the professional does it.” Nick takes the last bite of his Pawpsicle, unbuckles himself and opens his door.

“Well ok but your just as trained as I am at this, your taking the next one though, I’m not getting hustled into all the work.” Judy opens the door and steps out onto the street. She walks around the front of their cruise and heads towards the red sports car.

“I am hurt you would ever accuse me of hustling such a fine officer as yourself.” Nick puts his paw against his chest, mocking a hurt actor. Judy rolls her eyes while shaking her head before smiling, she could really get use to this. She puts on her professional face as she gets closer to the car and walks up beside the window, her ticket writing material at the ready.

“Sir, you were going 115 miles per hour, I hope you have a good explanation.” Judy blinks and tries to process what she’s seeing. She then recoils slightly form the sight.

“Flash, Flash 100-yard-dash!” Nick bends down to the window, the sloths face slowly lights up as he recognizes Nick.

“Nickkkkkkk.” Flash smiles at him who smiles back and then looks down at Judy with an excepting smile. The rabbit quickly comes to her sense and regains control of the situation.

“Flash, you were going to 115 mile per hour, I’m sure you understand that means not just a regular ticket will do I’m going to have to give you a reckless driving ticket, wither or not you get to keep your license is up to th-” Judy fells Nick’s elbow hit her side. She looks up from the sloth, which was ever so slightly getting that look of dread back on his face. The fox jerks his head towards the back of the car before speaking.

“Flash, buddy you stay right here while I go talk to my partner for quick second, don’t run off from us now.” Nick walks towards the back of the car with Judy following reluctantly.

“Carrots, come on, we cannot give him a reckless driving ticket, he’s my friend!” He puts his arms out in a pleading fashion.

“Just because he’s your friend doesn’t mean we can just let him go. You and I both now that!”

“Oh come on, he helped us with the case too, remember.” He stands up straighter with a more hopeful expression on his face. He smiles while Judy grumbles.

“Ohhhh Nick! come on, Bogo will kill us if we just let him off the hook!” she lays her ears back while crossing her arms. She starts thumbing her foot against the ground subconsciously.

“I know I know, how about this, he ran a red light AND was speeding, so we cut him SOME slack and give him a hefty speeding ticket, but not reckless driving?” Nick turns his hands up as if offering the idea while putting on his conman smile. The rabbit keeps the pained expression on her face and he quickly continues. “Ok ok, we give him the speeding ticket and we ticket him from running the red light, but we don’t have to take his license, I mean he helped us with the bellwether case after all.” The rabbit sigh and then start to turn around.

“Alright Alright, but you’re writing the rest of the tickets today, and paying for lunch.” She makes it back to the car window where she found flash to be seemingly talking to himself.

“Before… you go…. Could… we…. May-” Judy jumps in mind sentence. She tries to make a mental note to not leave sloths before their done talking.

“Flash were going to give you a speeding ticket, and you ran a red light, so we will ticket you for both of those offences, separately. You helped us with the case a little, so will help you a little, but you CAN NOT be driving like this in down town Savanna Central. Some mammal could get seriously injured, or worse.”

               “Work… out… a deal… where…” Judy sighs. She wasn’t waiting for this to pan out. She starts writing the ticket while her partner patiently waits beside her. Flash keeps talking, if it can be called that as Judy writes the rest of the tickets. Giving him the maximum speeding ticket without it being reckless driving and also ticketing him for running the red light.

               “Flash, if we catch you again, we will be looking much more into this street racer thing. We've gotten many complaints about this and it needs to stop, hopefully you can help us do that.” The rabbit attempts to hand over the two tickets but the sloth doesn’t take them.

               “I… helped you… on the… Bellweather… case… and…” Judy sighs and stands on her toes. She leans into the car slightly and drops the tickets onto the sloth’s lap. This was breaking policy somewhat, but she wasn’t going to wait the hour needed for the sloth to catch up to their current situation. Judy makes her way back to the cruiser with Nick in tow, within a minute, the duo are back on the road, patrolling their designated area. After a few moments the Fox spoke up.

               “Thanks for letting him off the hook carrots, or well, at least cutting him some slack.”

               “Hm don’t think me, I mean, I guess we should, he did help us, but I think Bogo’s going to be pretty pissed about us letting him off easy If he finds out how easy we let him off.”

               “I mean hey, we ticketed him twice and I don’t think will be having problems with him anymore either, Flash is a nice guy and his job at the DMV could even have some problems now that we sighted him for 2 traffic infractions in the same day.”

               “I guess that’s true he does work for the people dealing with licenses and how to keep them, bad example he’s making for them.”

               “Hey actually, speaking of Buffalo Butt, what did he want with you?” Nick turns towards Judy as she drives down the street, still scanning the sidewalks.

               “You mean ‘what he wanted with us’ and I’m not sure, he seemed serious though.”

               “Yeah that’s what worries me! I mean it’s my first day. My first briefing just hours ago even and he’s already asking to see me. I’ve been thinking about what I could have possible messed up in that time and I can’t think of anything! I already got my taxes squared away, or rather, ill be paying for that until my great grandkits die. I just don’t know what else I did wrong.” Nick huffs and frowns, searching his mind for relevant information on the situation.

               “It could be you didn’t do anything wrong you know, maybe he just wants to go over something about your new upstanding job?” The rabbits smiles at him. It was odd to her that he immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was in trouble, he barely even had time to get everything ready to be her partner. The paper work alone was enough to keep one busy before their first day and she also knew that he had changed apartments and recently got back in touch with some family members. Surely all those time-consuming activities left no time to effectively piss off Bogo so much he wanted to see Nick after his first day.

               “I don’t know, theirs no way it could be that, something just feels wrong to me…” he pauses and turns towards Judy. “Oh no.” his shocked expression causes her to tighter her grip on the steering wheel.

               “What?”

               “I know what it is, this is bad.”

               “Nick, what did you do?” Judy does her best to say the words in a calm manner. She couldn’t stand the way her friend was fidgeting, the distraught look in his eyes sends her into borderline panic mode. Her nose begins to twitch rapidly, reveling her concern. _Did Nick do something in his past that was really unlawful that he hasn’t told me?_

               “He’s going to tell me to stop being so handsome, or I’ll seduce his officers and they’ll get distracted on the job and that won’t be good for anyone.” The facades slips away and is instantly replaced with a smug smirk. Judy’s twitching nose slows, the gears in her head screech to a halt and fall out of place. She punches him in the shoulder as hard as she could muster form her position which isnt very hard.

               “OW! Hey!”

               “You Fox! Don’t do that to me, you worried me! I thought you did something that was going to get you fired, or that I would even have to arrest you!” Judy’ borderline yelling causes Nick to grow into a fit of laughers as she pays more attention to the road. She grumbles at his antics, that wasn’t funny in the slightest, she had gotten more worked up over than she would have liked to admit. She turns towards him to glare, her ears laid limp against her back.

               “That face! OH I missed it so much! I haven’t seen that snice I hustled you at the DMV I think, oh man I forgot how good it was.” Laughing more she quickly turns away form him. The comment was somehow enduring, whether he meant it that way or not, which made her blush slightly, getting almost giddy even. It was good to be back in his company, she had spent most of her free time with him before he went off to the academy, when he left it had left her lonelier than she would have liked to accept.

               “And hey! don’t call me a Fox, that speciesist.” She looks back over at him with a smile of her own now.

               “What, are you telling me that you _aren’t_ a fox? That’s news to me.”

               “No I’m most certainly a Fox, if anything, the one that should be questioning their species is you, you seem much more like a hare than a rabbit to me.” She grumbles and turns her attention back to the road.

               “If I’m a hare, then you must be an Artic Fox, because that’s just as ridicules of a conclusion!” she laughs.

               “Do I look white to you? Oh no, wait, everything makes sense now, your colorblind! That explains it. Never mind, you are forgiven, free Fox pass.”

               “Now that is speciesist Nick! but I can tell you that your green and not white, so don’t worry!” she laughs again and looks over at him. The look on his face is priceless, his eyes were growing bigger by the second and his jaw is dropping.

               “Carrots, you said I was green?”

               “Yeah, your coat color, I mean, its green, not white like an artic Fox, why?”

               “Like green, like the color of tree leaves?” his eyes grew wider when she nodded in agreement.

               “Y-Yeah like, the…” She attempts force down a snicker but fails miserably “GraSS-HAhaha”. She falls into a fit of laughter. The look on her partner face is worth way more than a thousand words. His ears quickly pin back against his head, his lips even come up a little bit in a weak snarl. The rabbit tries her best not to double over from laughter and drive the best she can.

               “I got you so good! admit it! You thought I was colorblind, you thought I thought you were green! Oh purple tulips that was just too good, that’s twice in one day now slick.”

               Her laughing slowly trails off as Nick grumbles quite audibly. After a few moments he points out that he hasn’t herd her ‘cute country cussing’, referring to the “purple tulips”, in a while and that it was a nice change to hear it again. Not soon after their roles are switched once again, with the rabbit groaning and the Fox laughing. The rest of patrol went like this. They found that even though they had been physically apart for a while, they easily jumped into an oddly familiar routine that was seemingly there before despite neither of them knowing of it. After a very uneventful first half of the day, which consisted mainly of catching up with one another and sitting in obscure parking lots waiting for something to happen. The heat of the midday increases, witch Nick is thankful for. The further mating season was behind him the better, and the clearer his head became the more jokes he found he could make at the expenses of his Rabbit friend. Soon it became launch time, and keeping true to his word, he let Judy pick where they were going to eat. After some navigating, they make their way form savanna central to the heart of Zootopia, Downtown. The climate not being controlled here let the weather decides for itself, and this afternoon it seemed it wanted to be moderately warm.

               After finding a place to park they make their way one block down before turning off into some newly built restaurant style establishment. At first glance it almost seems like a off brand fast food chain. Upon closer inspection that was not the case, this place seemed to have a little more class than the normal fast food chain. Looking around the room the mammals already seated and the ones in line waiting to order are both a wide variety of predator and prey. Getting in line, Nick found that many eyes are on both him and Judy.

He pushes the thought out of his head and scans the menu of the odd restaurant he found himself in. It is a new establishment and had found a niche apparently between severing food quickly but wasn’t fast food per say. The costumers were made to form a line to head towards a counter where food could be ordered and then payment given. After thinking about It for a few moments, the fox liked the idea. It was better food than fast food, but still quick to make and serve, and plenty of places to sit down inside to have your meal at tables or booths. The lack of true waiters didn’t take away from the effect either, their jobs were simply to bring mammals their food after they order and found a seat and then clean up the mess. No need to constantly check up on you, and snice the food was simple the need wasn’t there. This is meant to partly compete with fast food chains, and full on waiters would drive up the cost defeating the purpose. Nick ponders these thoughts while ideally following behind Judy in the line. There are a few mammals in front of them, but the line is moving steadily so Nick scans the menu more thoroughly. Their options spans a wide range of food types, catering to both herbivore and carnivore and everything in-between. Herbivore was mainly to the left of the overhead menu and looking right it slowly fades to the more carnivore type foods. He looks for something in-between the too, remembering, even though she never said it aloud, Judy wasn’t fond of him eating fish products in front of her, but bugs did seem to be ok. He finally settles on the bug and bean wrap with a side of mixed berries and apples. Judy decides on her, apparently typical meal here, which was some type of lettuce and hay dish, with a side of mangos and beans. The beans were an odd choice for the rabbit, and when Judy saw his questioning look, she said that she needs more protein in her diet from all the physical work she was doing. He contemplates this for a moment and realizes that it might be extremely difficult for some herbivores to get enough protein in their diet depending on their needs, he had never really considered this.

After ordering, Judy leads the way once again and stops at a booth which she informs Nick is hers, as far as the restaurant owner was concerned. Seating down and glancing around the room, he found that all the mammals look away from him when he attempts to make eye contact. He sighs and turns back to Judy, he opens his mouth to speak but didn’t get a word in.

               “Judy! It’s good to see you again.” A muskrat walks over to them at the booth. She wears a blue shirt with a spiffy logo incorporating the name of the place, “ _The Spill Spot”_. The Muskrat turns towards Nick and smiles to his surprise.

               “And you must be the one and only Nick Wilde! It’s great to finally meet you after hearing so much about you!” she extends her paw happily and he quickly stands up and shakes it.

               “It’s good meet you to miss…?”

               “Just call me Kate please! And its great to meet you! It’s a great honor to not only have the heroic Bunny cop in my restaurant but now also the Fox as well!” She laughs while the Fox sat back down.

               “Oh no no, im going to have to stop you right there, I’m definitely not a hero by any means.”

               “Wow, not only a hero but also humble, you really weren’t kidding when you said he was _something special_.” Both the muskrat and the Fox look at the rabbit who seems to be embarrassed. Nick smirks, and leans in slightly, this was exactly the kind of information he loved to bring up at a latter date to tease and provoke other mammals with.

               “Now carrots, I didn’t know you thought I was ‘something _special_ ’.”

               “Oh. My. Gosh!” Kate laughs drawing again the attentions of both the costumers. “Man, Judy you sure didn’t lie when she said you knew him well. She told me you loved to tease and saying something like that is exactly what Judy told me would set you off. Oh, you two are most definitely the dynamic duo, I can see why you two are partners, I wish more police were like that.” she smiles but with a touch of sadness in a way. She quickly turns her head in the direction of the food counter at the sound of a bell. “Looks like your foods ready, be right back.”

               Once food was set on the table the two happily focused on their meal. Nick rarely ate breakfast and this morning was no exception. A comfortable silence fell between the two. He contemplates this while he eats. The only mammal he ever had comfortable silences with was Finnick, and ever sense he told him he was joining the police they quickly turned tense and awkward. Their friendship was most likely not fixable, or the original real friendship that is, Finnick seemed to feel abandoned, which was odd to him. _Maybe I should talk to him? I mean he led Judy to me when she was looking for me, that was extremely out of character as well now that I think about it._ Nick frowned, deep in thought, after some time, his food was long gone before Judy’s was and it seems she was doing her best to down it and get back to patrol so Nick deices to let her eat and keep quiet. His eyes wonder around the room and fell on a booth with a young bobcat with presumably her mother. She seems about early teens to him and was utterly failing to covertly take a picture of him with her phone. The cat see’s him glance over and she quickly puts her phone down and acts as if nothing happened.

               Nick looks the other way towards the front windows in the restaurant. Looking out the windows one could make out the street, but it just so happened that the sunlight was reflecting in the right way to catch the image of the teenage bobcat and her booth. Nick smirks and waits for the right moment. The cat glances at him again and then around the room, she acts, very poorly at that, he notes, to look forward while bring her phone up to points across the room at him. He had to time this right for the desired effect to work but he is sure he can pull it off. She holds the phone still for a second and then brings her thumb down to snap the picture. Watching from the reflection in the window, he quickly turns around to look at her, making the smuggest look her could muster while sticking out his tongue. He held the pose for a moment before sucking his tongue in but kept looking at the cat. She brought her phone back to her face and excitedly swipes the screen. Looking at the pone the cat yelps, much to his amusement, and then fumbles with her phone before dropping it out of surprise. She slowly turns towards the Fox with an expression mixed between embarrassment and shock. He winks at her before turning back to Judy, who was just finishing her meal and seems oblivious to the whole interaction.

               “Ready to head out, slick?”

               “I thought it was, ‘Ready to make the world a better place!’ what happened?” Judy just rolled her eyes as she get up. Nick got up as well but not before slipping a ten for a tip. He knew it wasn’t needed, but it felt good to feel so welcome by the muskrat waiter, so he thinks it’s appropriate. They mad their way out the door and just a few steps down the sidewalk before-

“Wait….” Judy patted the pockets of her police uniform, at first it is a normal pat down, which quickly turned into her franticly hitting all her pockets. She stops mid pats and stares back at him “I lost my phone!”

“Clam down, it’s probably in _your_ booth seat.” He smiles as Judy dashes back into the building in search of her phone. He looks down the street, ideally looking for something interesting to entertain him while his partner was looking for her phone. He breaths in through his nose, skewing his ears at the odd bombardment of scents. Most were uninteresting, but one stood out as oddly familiar. It was difficult to pick it out amongst the hundreds of other mammals’ odor but he is sure he smelt it. the, smell is distinctive, yet oddly out of place for him. It was almost like something he wasn’t supposed to smell, like something he told himself he wasn’t supposed to smell. He scratched his head for a moment, thinking about what could have possibly told himself not to smell, then it hits him, Vixen.

Nick feels a slight pull on his pants leg and quickly looks down at the obstruction. To his surprise, it was a younger fox kit, probably around 5, tugging on his pants leg. Nick looks down at the kid in worry, wondering where her parents were while crouching down to her level. Before he could get anything out the kit spoke first.

“Are you officer Wilde, the first fox police officer!?” The kit excitedly yells while smiling at Nick.

“The one and only, what can I do you for?” he smiles back at the little fox.

“Can I please hav-” The smaller fox is stopped before she could finish her sentence as a vixen quickly runs up and picks her up from behind.

“I am SO sorry officer, she saw you from across the street and I couldn’t grab her fast enough. I hope she hasn’t caused any problems, officer it won’t happen agia-” Nick quickly jumps in and stops the rambling, and clearly nervous, vixen.

“Hey hey hey, everything is fine, no need to be sorry, just a kit being a kit. She runs quick, should be on a track team.” Nick chuckles as the vixen attempts to hide her blush and keep her ears up straight. The Kit wiggles in her mother’s grasp and speaks again.

“Officer Wilde can I please have your autograph!” The kit wiggles around excitedly, trying to break free from her mother’s grasp.

“Cathy please leave the officer alone he has important work to do and the last thing h-” Nick sharks his head and puts his paw out while shaking it side to side as well.

“No its more than ok, I would be happy to do so, where do you want it?” The mother sighs while smiling and lets the kit down who quickly rummages through her bookbag and pulls out something that looks like a scrap book. She opens it to a particular page and then thrust it into Nick’s paws smiling wide.

“Do you want it to say, ‘From Nicholas P. Wilde to Cathy’?” Cathy nodes happily and Nick takes a quick glance up at the smiling mother Fox before looking back at the page. Looking at the page he notices that this is indeed a scrap book and seemingly devoted to himself. The page beside where Cathy pointed to has a cut out from a newspaper depicting his graduation with the article beside it. He gives a sideways smile at it before looking back at Cathy.

“Have you been stalking me?”

“Yes! I have, I have every news article sense you and Judy defeated major bellwether! See?” Nick chuckles as Cathy begins to flip the pages of the scrap book.

_Ahhh haha, I don’t think you quite understand what the word ‘stalk’ means there litt-_

His train of thought gets stopped in its tracks as Cathy flips to through the next few pages of her book. The pages are covered in news articles and print outs of Judy at first but then turn into pages and pages of articles about himself. All the news articles that he knew about were there as well as some he didn’t, which surprises him because he loves seeing himself in the papers. Some pictures were even printed off the ZPD website, publicizing that the first Fox, who also just so happened to help crack the Bellwether case, was going through the academy. He felt a strange feeling looking at all the work that went into the pages. A bittersweet feeling of both pride and a slight amount of horror overtook him. Not only did mammals know him, but some were now branding him a hero, or at least this kit was. He felt a strange pressure now to hold up some type of hero persona, while also desperately trying to sweep his conman past under the rug. He looks back towards the kit and smiles.

“Now where did you want me to sign?” Nick asks. The kit quickly flips back to her desired page and thrust the book into his lap again. He signs the page with the best signature he could muster, putting in some extra flare but making sure to keep it readable for her. He hands the book and sharpie back to Cathy and smiles at her excited reaction. She quickly runs into Nick for a hug and he happily returns the gesture. He takes the moment to look up to vixen, who was smiling down at the sweet sight. She mouths sorry to him, but he waves her off before carefully extracts himself from the hug and standing back up, noticing that the vixen was slightly shorter then himself.

“Thank you, officer Wilde.”

“You can just call me Nick, your kit’s sweet, ive never been asked for an autograph before.” Nick gives the vixen a warm smile and she slightly blushes.

“Oh yes, when Officer Hopps became the first rabbit on the police force she would just not stop talking about it! She thought It was great to see her breaking the norm. she told me that soon even racoons would be police officers, and I made a mistake by saying something foolish to that. want to take a guess at what it was?” She fiddles with her kits ears, who was pushs up against her legs before she smiles at Nick who smirks back, predicting where this was going.

“Hmm, I think I can take a guess, something like, ‘that would be about as crazy as a _Fox._ ’” Nick smirks as the mother’s face lights up in a sly smile.

“Well, I can see why you’re an Officer, Mr. Wilde, But yes, and then you came along and made me eat my words! Ha-ha.” The vixen laughs, drawing a few good chuckles from Nick as well.

“But I’m sorry we bothered you, will be even later to school than it already is.”

“Oh its ok, I’m actually waiting for car- Miss Hopps to retrieve her lost phone from the restaurant.” Nicks winces for from his slip in professionalism. Calling Judy ‘carrots’ in front of other mammals was not the best idea for so many reasons. His train of thought was lost when he notices the kits eyes light up and she begins to look around, presumably for Judy. The kit looks up at Nick who points towards the restaurant. The kit fly’s from her mother’s paws and into the building in a blur, before either of the older foxes could react.

“At least she’s running towards a cop.” The vixen laughs and smiles at Nick. “Caitlin, by the way.” She puts her hand on her hip. The pose making her seem much younger than she is.

“Well I see were already at a first name bases, as I said, Nick if you will.” He bows slightly getting another laugh form the vixen. He takes a moment to really look at her. She must be just slightly older then him, judging from the scent Nick as picking up and possible a guess from her having a kit with her. Her eyes are a lovely dark amber, she sports a pair of dark ears, dark brown around the base and black at the tips. Her nose was black as well, slowly turning into a lighter shade of brown and then almost white at the edges of her checks. The rest of her coast was more traditionally light golden tent, with her neck and chest region the normal cream color. She most certainly seemed to be a golden furred fox, which was a common pattern among the species.

“Well, Nick, what brings you to patrol this part of town, anything I should be worried about.”

“Nothing in particular, just making sure that Kits get to school in a timely manner, which seems that didn’t happen for someone.” The smirk he gives her make her ears twitch, and an almost forgotten scent hits Nicks nose like the blast from a battel ships main cannon. He must focus his attention on other thoughts as he attempts to subtlety flush the scent of excited vixen from his nose.

“Oh, yes, I promise it’s not my fault, officer.” She holds up one paw and covers her heart with the other in a playful fashion. “Cathy actually managed to miss the bus, again, and I had to drag her to work with me. I’m attempting to take her to school in a timely manner on my lunch break, but she just has other plans it seems.” She laughs again, and Nick smiles. A breeze blows through the street, bringing some much-needed relief for him.

“well I hope we haven’t held you up any, actually I –” Nick is interrupted mind sentence when he notices Judy approaching from behind the vixen, with the kit in tow behind her anchored by her paw in Judy’s. It was something he would have branded cute if it weren’t for the expression on his partners face. Her ears are up at attention and her eyes are wide. Both signs of focus he had leaned, although the thing that most confused him was her nose. It was twitching full speed, and even her whiskers are bouncing up and down from it. That meant she is worried or stressed, or some combination of the two, he is pretty sure at least. No sooner can Nick tilt his head in confusion than the expression disappears and Judy approaches with the kit.

               “I thought I had already given out all the autographs I was going to get. I was surprised to see someone who still wanted one, especially without a parent and when she’s supposed to be in school.” She cast a glance at the vixen before Nick jumps in.

“No worries carrots, already taken care of it, they were actually already on their way to school, believe it or not, they missed the bus.” Nick winces from his mistake but it was too late. Oh well, calling Judy carrots wasn’t the worst that could happen on his first day, surely. The vixen checks her watch. After doing so her expression became slightly panicked with her ears shooting up to attention.

“Cathy were going to be late! Again! we need to hurry sweetie.” The kit grumbles but hops away from Judy towards her mother.

“Bye Officer Nick and Officer Judy!” she happily bumps up against her mother legs grasping her scrap book of admiration for the odd duo. Caitlin takes the smiling kit’s hand and pulls her close to her side. She looks over at the two and waves while starting to walk away.

“Sorry to bother you Officers, we have to be getting on our way now or will be late, _again.”_ she laughs.

“Oh, its fine, and you know what number to call if you ever need us.” Nick smirks and starts to walk away. Caitlin lets out a little laugh and without missing a beat answers.

“I take it that’ll be 911? And if you ever need a meal I’ll be at the red fawn, where down town and rainforest district meet, I bet I could get a discount for the first hero fox Officer?” Caitlin slightly swivels her ears and swishes her tell while putting on her best smile, wondering if officer Wilde would pick up the question.

“I’ll have to take you up on that offer soon enough. Have a nice day you two.” Nick says and gives a slight wave, doing his best to pretend he didn’t catch Caitlin’s body langue. Cathy and Caitlin wave back and he takes note of Caitlin’s ringless paw before he turns around to face his partner. _Well great getting flirted with on the first day, and by a mother no less. Would have loved that a year ago but that felt oddly… wrong, do I feel guilty? And why does It seem Judy’s about to thump her foot off while looking distraught as hell._

“Earth to carrots, are you ok? You mad about something? Sorry I called you carrots in front of civilians, please don't write me up for harassment!” He playfully says. The comment snaps Judy out of her mood and she changes her attitude quicker than the flick of a tail. Nick rises an eyebrow at this “What, don’t tell me you’re at that mad at that poor vixen getting her kit to school so late.” Judy expression flickers from slightly panic to relief and finally semi-relaxed. Nick wonders if this is a rabbit thing, or a Judy thing, these moods swings seemed Rabbit related to Nick though.

               “Yeah, your right, she said she was taking her to school, its just their so late, being tardy isn’t good, you know.” She looks over at Nick who just laughs. With that they make it back to their cruiser. Getting into the cruiser Judy sticks the key into the ignition.

               “You know that kit wanted my autograph…” He looks over at his partner who rolls her eyes.

               “Oh wonderful, now your going to get crushed under the weight of your massively growing ego.”

               “No, really listen for second, the kit wanted my autograph, I mean, she looked up to me. Judy…” He turns to look at her and saying her name really caught her attention. “No one’s ever looked up to me before, let alone a kit, I mean, damn. That was a serious wake up call for me back there. This is, I don’t know, something that’s a big deal for me, you know? And I have you to think for that. I just wanted to properly think you for it, I feel like I haven’t and wanted you to know I appreciate you helping me out and, well, believing that I could be more than I was.” Judy stares at Nick for a few moments in silence. It was so rare to get to see this side of Nick, and she couldn’t help but feel a little honored that he trusts her with some of his more personal feelings.

               “Nick, it’s like I said, you had it in you the whole time. you just needed a little push. I was more than happy to be the mammal that gave you that push.” Judy reaches over and places a paw on his shoulder. She found it surprisingly easy to reach him since he was leaned over towards her in their car. He looks at her a moment, his expression seeming to weaken even further before tightening up and he gets hit classic Wilde smile back.

               “But your right, its also nice to have my ego boosted as well, don’t get me wrong.” And just like that, the moment to look deeper into the feelings of Nick are gone. Judy groans both form the felting moment and the ego boosting comment. This had happened a few times before, the first being the gondola which now seemed like years ago. But each time, Judy felt like she got to know Nick a little bit better. She was determined to tare down all the walls he built up around him after so many years of hurt. She decides she would mark this day as another one of her little victories, constantly taking steps further and further into his life and helping him fix things. She starts the car drive out of the lot. They slide smoothly back into what Judy would consider one of the most uneventful days of patrol she had ever done. She was entertained the rest of the day by her partner of course. While she found nothing of significance really happened in terms of policing, the day went but quickly with them keeping each other company and they soon found themselves headed back to the ZPD at the end of their day.

               Nick is still uneasy about walking back into the ZPD and Is no rush to do so. His partner, however, seems to want to run to their destination instead of walk. Knowing where they are headed, he is even less inclined to keep pace with Judy. After seeing this, she puts two and two together and attempts to tell Nick all the reasons why they are not in trouble and this must be something good. Needless to say, he isn't buying it, he knew from many years of not so legal dealings and business to see a set up when it presented itself and this was no doubt going to cause problems. _This is going to causes problems,_ he thinks. He spots Wolford down the main hall while still in tow behind Judy. At some points she had grabbed his paw and was leading him like a lost to kit, but instead of taking him to his mother she was leading him to his inevitable doom, he is sure.

               “Hey Wolford! How’s it going?” Judy cheerfully asks.

               “Its going good…” he rises an eyebrow at the rabbit leading the Fox by the paw and then smiles broadly. “Well now, Wilde, you so scared you needs Officer Hopps here to hold you paw?” Judy laughs as well as Wolford but Nick whines.

               “Wolford, please you gotta help me! Bogo already wants me in his office! Judy won’t listen, my only hope. Tranq her, or Taze her, or something!” Judy jerks him along forcibly by his paw, causing Wolford to laugh more than what she thought is called for.

               “Hahaha, Damn Wilde, this is a new record! Never herd of a new recruit piss off Bogo so fast, shit we’re going to have to update the leader boards, looks like your putting me in third now.” He laughs some more before waiving slightly and going back to his business. _Such an odd pairing, a Fox and Rabbit, maybe they will be the dynamic duo like Fangmeyer said._ He went ideally on his way, mulling over the paper work he needs to finish.

               After a few more moments of walking, and the fox getting jerked unwilling along, they arrive at the door of the Chief of Police Office. Nick stares at the door, “CHIEF BOGO”, written in gold lettering on the door somehow reminds him of Mr Big, which made him shiver. Judy knocks on the door and he starts to get himself mental prepared.

               _OK, no problem, already meet him, he liked my joke this morning. Other mammals laughed. Haven’t done anything wrong, have I?_ He thinks for a second, _Nope, can’t come up with anything. Ok here were go, be funny, break the ice, no problem. First Fox officer, no panic, first Fox officer, with the first bunny officer… and the first fox officer has a not so legal background…. Don’t Panic, Don’t panic, Don’t Panic…_

               “Come in.” Bogos deep and authoritative voice sounds from inside the office and Judy starts to open the door.

               _PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC_ Nicks mind flails as they enter the office. They are just a few steps in when the chief speaks up again.

               “Wilde, please step out for a moment, I would like to speak to Hopps alone first.” Nick nods in agreement before stepping out and quietly shutting the door behind him. Judy position herself on her seat, Bogo is tall enough that setting on the chair works just fine, his piercing eyes from across the desk do nothing to help Judy calm her nerves now that Nick was asked to leave. This was a very odd meeting now, indeed.

               “Officer Hopps, how was your first day with Officer Wilde?”

               “Very good sir, we ticketed who we presume is the street racer and he shouldn’t be a problem anymore now.”

               “Does he seem to be fitting in well? Did you and him get along well while out on patrol?” Bogo clasps his hooves in front of him on the desk, giving his full attention to the her. This is extremely odd to her, never had Bogo asked her anything like this before, these questions were going towards personal inquiry and away from work it seems. She answers honestly none the less.

               “I thought he fit in well in the brief this morning, I’ll be honest, I was worried that he wouldn’t fit in, or get ridiculed even, but that seemed to have been a pointless worry. Me and Nic- Officer Wilde got along fine out on patrol today, I didn’t ask to have him assigned to me to be my partner before knowing that we would work well together.” Judy nods at the end of her answer, pleased with the way it came out. She didn’t want anybody but him to be her partner and she is confident that she could rely on Nick both as a friend and as a colleague.

               “Officer Hopps, can you trust Officer Wilde?” She looks at Bogo in the eyes and he stares right back. His eyes seem to bear down into her soul, looking at the very strands that hold her together. Her voice hitches for a moment, she than breathes in a deep breath before speaking.

               “Sir?”

               “What I mean, Hopps, is, can you trust Nicolas Wilde with your life?” he leans in slightly, huffing air through his long snout, slightly ruffling the few papers on his desk. Judy stares blankly at him, briefly searching her mind for some string of coherent thoughts to help make sense of the suddenly heavy question. The only thing her mind can come up with is:

               _Sweet cheese and crackers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Special thanks to my friends: Karl, Abby, Ryan and Matt for helping me with plot and spelling/grammar.
> 
> The next chapter will take a bit longer to come out, hopefully it will be done near the end of this month but I'm starting school back soon so that will put a dent in things. If not this month then most likely mid next month. I'm pretty nervous about the next chapter because it's crucial to the plot and I'm worried about writing myself into a corner so to speak. This being the case ill be double and triple checking my outline for the story and adding onto my rough backlog of chapters, this will also contribute to the longer wait for the next chapter. This is the first time I've published anything in pieces and its extremely different for me so please bare with me.


	3. The Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed.

**The Best of You**

**Chapter 3: The Case**

               Judy stares at the buffalo. He stares right back at her. The stillness in the office does nothing to calm the nerves of the rabbit. She frantically searches for a reason for the line of questioning. Nick had taught her that more often than not the reason for the question is more important than the question itself; just as the lie itself is usually a moot point when compared to the reason behind it. Her nose is on the verge of twitching itself off her face when Bogo leans back in his seat; the action knocks Judy from her stupor and she immediately knows the answer.

               “Sir, Officer Wilde proved himself in the academy, just like all the other officers in Precinct 1. He got A’s in all his classes and even did better than me in the driving exams and night activities. I would not have asked for him specifically if I did not have full trust in his abilities.” She forces her ears back up straight, bringing them off her shoulders. Not having nearly enough time to guess the reason for his line of questioning, Judy goes with the most honest answer she can give.

               “So, you trust him with your life?” Bogo crosses his arms.

               “Yes, yes I do.” Judy tries to hide the small bit of doubt in her answer. She trusts him, sure, but with her life? Having such a heavy question asked so bluntly, by the chief of police, no less, causes her to squirm a little on the inside.

               “Good, that’s the answer I was expecting, I’m glad to hear he did well on his first day and ticketing the supposed street racer was a bonus as well. My officers are like family and I’m responsible for every one of them, as you know; please let me know if he has any problems fitting in... or problems with others on the force.”

               “Yes sir, I will.” His last comment sounds odd; she doesn’t know of anyone giving Nick problems so far, or even anything bad said about him. Still it is off seeing the brief glimpse into the soft side of the chief.

               “Do you think Officer Wilde is ready to help with a potentially serious case, or do you believe he needs more time to get acquainted with the force?” _So that’s what this is about._ The rabbit can now answer with much more confidence than before.

               “If the academy is truly a good gauge of a recruit’s ability to both handle and prevent civil unrest, then his graduation is proof enough that he is capable. As I said before, I wouldn’t want any other mammal by my side out on the beat and I feel the same way towards a more high-profile situation or case. Although, I will be honest, I’m not sure how he will feel. I think it would really depend on what the contents of the case would be.”

               “That is what worries me. Would you let him in, please?” Judy hops down from the chair and walks quickly to the door. She opens it and sticks her head out into the hall.

Her ears drop. He isn’t there. He should most definitely be right outside the door, waiting. He didn’t walk off, somewhere did he? Judy briefly contemplates how far she can throw a Fox off the balcony and into the main lobby. She looks to her left around the edge of the door and spots Nick a few steps down, leaning on the balcony railing, using his phone. More relief than she would like to admit hits her as he pockets his phone and makes his way into the office. It isn’t until he passes by her that she sees the look on his face. Why he is so worried she can’t understand. Both officers get onto stand in the single, large seat placed in front of the chief’s desk.

               “Officer Wilde, how was your first day?”

               “It was good, sir.” _I really shouldn’t have made that joke this morning._

               “Good, I was informed that you ticketed are alleged street racer, is that correct?”

               “Yes sir, we caught him speeding and running a red light, we ticketed him for both.” Judy glances over at Nick. Saying it like that made it sound like they were so much harder on him rather than letting him off easy like they did. It is somewhat alarming to her how well Nick can lie without ever actually doing it out right.

               “That’s good, I'm glad you two were able to take care of that. Let’s hope we don’t have any problems from him again. Now, I would like to get to the real reason that I called you hear, it pertains to the night howler incident.” Both the Fox and Rabbit come to full attention. Their ears turn directly towards the chief. “Our cybercrime division has reported findings involving the possible production of a new narcotic. We have some sleeper profiles on various forums that frequent use by drug traffickers and dealers. Talk of new drugs comes and goes like the seasons, it seems, so about six months ago when there was talk of a new substance it was mostly overlooked. Most of the time when this happens, it’s just a mix of pre-existing substances, household cleaners, or even prescription drugs. We expected this to be the case but nevertheless kept tabs on it. Part of the reason we were slow picking up on this was that the new drug seemed to be called many different things by different users and dealers. It’s also worth noting that the alleged users on different forums often claimed different effects from the drug. Some would say that they've taken something new called “Wild Dust” and said it produced similar effects to certain amphetamines. Others would say that they got a hold of “Prime” and said they experienced something like being on MDMA before blacking out and waking up somewhere else. One name stayed persistent, however, across multiple forms and websites. Users called it “Cobalt”, and they claimed it came in many different forms, from a blue powder that was snorted, to a dark blue liquid that needed to be injected. Precinct 3 got us a lucky break when they apprehended a mammal acting strangely near Happy Town. Once they got the mammal in, they drug tested him and got a statement form him as well. It took a few tries, but we got him to open up and tell us about what he had taken. He claimed he’d taken a new drug he had never tried before, he called it Prime. When we got the drug tests back, we were surprised to see it came back positive with Night Howlers, among other things.” The room fills with a new level of tension. Nick’s paw is at his chin, claw out and scratching through his jaw fur deep in thought. Judy’s ears slowly lay back, sticking straight out from the back of her head, something a mouse could probably use as a diving board.

               “So… Mammals are using some form of night howlers to get high!? Are they crazy!? How is that even possible without them going completely insane and running around trying to kill anything that moves? Do we know who’s distributing the new drug? Or what it’s made of exactly? Or how it’s made? Or who’s making it or or… anything?” Judy paws are planted firmly on the desk, leaning forward she seems to almost challenge the Chief. He sighs before replying.

               “No, Hopps, we have extremely little information on the current situation. This gets us to the reason I even bring up this situation in the first place. We've been placing a few officers from each precinct on this “case” to work on when new information arises. I use this term “case” very lightly, there's no true official investigation yet because there’s so little information to investigate. But, given the obvious potential for this situation to go south, it needs preemptive measures. It's not going to hurt to keep a few officers up to date, primed and ready to go if something does arise. I would like to offer you the opportunity to be on this “team”, as it were, of officers.”

               “Yes, absolutely, count me and Nick both in.” Bogo snorts amusingly at the quick and demanding answer the Bunny cop gives him. Judy hasn’t stopped surprising him, and her ability to readily throw herself into an unknown situation is interesting to say the least. It’s so unlike a bunny, he thinks.

               “Officer Hopps, consider yourself on, but you cannot speak on behalf of your partner. Wilde, if you don’t feel comfortable taking the case that’s fine; that being said, if you don’t, you two will switch partners. If Judy is out on the beat with you and something comes up, we will need her immediately and you won’t be up to date, we might lose time switching you out with someone who is. Also, on this note, if you do take the “case” then we will need to get you up to speed on some more training and experience as well. I think it goes without saying that basically all other officers have more experience then you right now. At the same time, you’re one of the few mammals that have first-paw experience with Night Howlers, so you would be an asset in the situation we seem to face.”

Bogo’s answer causes Judy’s ears to drop flat against her back. He’s right, she couldn’t answer for Nick on this one. She looks over at him, his claws have moved down from his jaw and now work their way into his neck fur. He looks off into the distance, seeming to take in all the information, contemplating his answer. A rock forms in the pit of Judy's stomach. _Of course, he’s not going to take the case, it’s his first day on the job for carrots sake! He has one day worth of experience and is already being offered a “case” in a possibly disastrous situation!_ The more she thinks, the more the rock in her stomach sinks. She feels sick. After working so hard to get her friendship put back together with Nick after the press conference catastrophe and then getting him to join the police force and having to wait so long, she’s going to lose him, again. Time seems to stretch out into an endless expense as she stares at Nick waiting for his inevitable answer of “no.” She feels like pulling her ears off, could she ever just catch a break? After what seems like waiting an eternity in limbo, he speaks.

               “If Judy is on the case,” His paws stop messing with the fur on his neck and drop to his sides. He looks at Bogo with his ears perfectly erect, his tale stock still and his eyes laser-beam focused into the water Buffalo. “Then count me in as well.” His answer is confident, yet somehow seems to carry some manifestation of an ultimatum that he's made with himself, something he had never fully come to terms with until now.

               “Good, I will have you updated on what we know as soon as I gather the relevant information. What we discussed here does not leave this room.” He pauses and turns towards the one and only Fox officer. “I’m putting great trust in you, don’t make me regret my decision.” An impromptu staring match begins. Judy looks back and forth between the two males, trying to figure out why they are seeming to size one another up. Finally, Nick nods his head in agreement, never taking his eyes off the chief. Bogo nods as well. “Now, get out of my office, its late and I want to go home.” With that both the Fox and Bunny said their goodbyes and hastily left the room. Silence hangs around them as they make their way from the overhang to the elevator to take them to ground level. Judy couldn’t hold it in anymore and as the elevator doors close, she lets it all out.

“OHH NICK! WE’RE ON A SPECIAL CASE TOGETHER, ALREADY!” she grabs his arm excitedly and jumps into the air. Her tale wiggles as the jumps gets her height just over Nicks.

               “Woah, hey there Carrots. Heh yeah, that’s us, not something id really be excited about though.” He smiles at her and pets her head a few times, realizing their closeness she quickly let’s go of his arm. She looks at him with a hint of sadness in her eyes.

               “What do you mean… you don’t want to be on the case?” she wrings her paws while her ears droop against her back. She looks off to the side and forces out her next words. “You know… if you don’t Fe-feel ready, you don’t have to take It with me. I can always Find another partn-”

               “Carrots,” he cuts in before she can finish her thought. “I told you in Buffalo Butt’s office, if you’re on this “case” than so am I, even if I feel I’m not quite ready for something like this AND I know that look your giving me. It’s the “You can’t do a selfless act because of me, only I can do that because I’m the cute little bun-” a swift punch to his side stops him mid-sentence.

               “What have I told you about that word, Nick!”

               “Awww but Carrots, are you saying I can’t call you cute, even if I think you actually are?” He leans in towards her with his classic con-mammal smile.

               “But yo- that word is just so- I mean, you actually think im cu-”

               “Woah, woah, woah! Carrots the word! You can’t use the C word around rabbit’s, remember!” The Elevator doors open, and Nick strolls out before Judy can answer him. She lingers for a second. _Does he actually think I’m cute or is he just pulling my ear? I mean, if he actually thinks I’m cute, how should I even feel… Happy? Angry?_ She looks up at the Fox making his way past the desk in the main lobby. _That smug Fox!_ She runs after him, deciding that the whole convoluted conversation of ‘to cute or not to cute’ isn’t worth the headache and confusing answers Nick would surely give her. On top of that, he had totally just used that topic to get away from the early one! She contemplates the Fox’s ability to switch topics so smoothly without her noticing while she catches up to him.

               “Hey Clawhauser, you’re here late, what’s up?”

               “Oh, hey Judy, and Nick. Yeah, john isn’t here yet, he’s late, again” The cheetah frowns as the pair walk past him.

               “Sorry, buddy, I’d stay but I have a date with my bed, and she’ll get mad if I’m late.”

               “It’s ok guys, I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early tomorrow!”

               “Bye Clawhauser, catch you later!” Judy replies. The pair waves good bye and make their way out of the building. They walk side by side down the steps and onto the side walk. The late afternoon is cool but not enough to warrant a coat, so it is quite comfortable for the Fox. The rabbit however thinks it is just a little bit too cool. She crosses her arms, mulling over the last hour or so. What Bogo told them is defiantly something to be concerned about. She’s still not sure about Nick either. He seems unsure about his decision to work the case, he also smoothly avoided her line of questioning just a moment ago. That fact only furthers her concerns. It is only his first day, maybe he truly isn’t ready for something like this. However, he would be a valuable resource on the case she is sure. He had done great in the Academy and his first-paw knowledge of not so legal activities would surely aid them while investigating as well, especially since the case seems to largely incorporate drug dealing. _Not that I think Nick dealt drugs, though… He was just a small time hustl-_

“Whiskers!” The Fox startles her out of deep thought. “Don’t hurt your brain there, I was beginning to think you had a stroke!” He chuckles until he notices the rabbit’s ears have shot straight out from the back of her head, neither up nor down. _Here we go, she’s got her ears put into determined mode, again._

               “Nick, are you sure you want to do this with me? I mean, be on the case and everything?”

               “I was afraid you wouldn't leave this be.” He shoves his paws in his pockets as they make their way towards the metro.

               “Nick, really, if you don't feel comfortable doing this then you don't have to. Really. I - I can find a new, um… partner… Everything will be fine. I mean really it will only be temporary and when the case is done, however long that takes, we-”

               “Judy.” The Rabbits ears drop immediately, and she turns to look at Nick. _That got her attention,_ he thinks. “Listen, like I said, I want to work with you. If you're on this “case” then I want to be on the “case” too.” He air-quotes case, mimicking what Bogo had done. “I'll be honest, I'm not sure how ready I am for this, this seems like it's pretty high-profile already and maybe if the circumstances were different, I _wouldn't_ do it. Now, that being said, Bogo seems to think I'm ready, he wouldn’t have asked me if he didn’t. I think I can help, so I’ll be here to assist if I can, and if you want me to.”

               “Nick, of course I want you to work with me, that's the whole reason I gave you the application for the ZPD in the first place!” She looks over at him. His expression is usually hard to read, having that smug grin plastered on his face almost all the time did that but now it seems that he has slipped up. His ears are slightly down, something she learned to pay attention to. His muzzle broke into a small smile. A genuine smile. His face quickly went from slightly happy to solemn for fraction of a second before he looks back forward with the egotistical smirk he so often wears. Just like that, the real feelings of Nick Wilde are covered up and he evades Judy Hopps once again.

               “Of course, you want me on the case, I mean, who else are you going to get to solve it?”

               “Oh, that's easy, slick, I’ll just walk around downtown in my meter maid outfit and wait till I find some poor unlucky Fox that I can con into helping me.” She shoots a smirk of her own at him.

               “I'm wounded you think you can replace me, carrots.” He places a paw over his heart and his other up and out, in what Judy knew all too well as his “hurt Fox persona”. They approach the entrance to the subway and the Fox stops in front of it. They seem to have covered a lot more ground while talking than he noticed.

               “Well, I believe this is where we part, carrots, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

               “Yeah its easier for me to take the bus.”

               “See ya’ tomorrow.” He gives a slight wave and starts towards the entrance to the metro.

               “Hey Nick?” He turns back around to face Judy as she runs headlong into him. She wraps her relatively small arms around his torso for a full-on hug.  Her ears flop against his shoulder and beside his cheeks, slightly tickling him. “I knew you could do it, Nick, being a cop, I mean.” He wraps his arms around her for the hug, pulling her in tight.

               “Thanks for believing in me, Carrots, I’m happy to be here.” He gives her a good squeeze before breaking the hug. She lingers for a moment. “You bunnies are so emotional.” He pats her head adoringly. She lets go at looks up at him.

               “At least you’re not calling me dumb this time, I’ll see you tomorrow, slick.”

               “See you tomorrow, whiskers” and with that he makes his way down the stairs and into the metro system beneath the city. He ponders his odd feelings for the rabbit before quickly dismissing them while getting to the platform. _Now I have something to take my mind off things, good. Night Howlers are back I guess, them being illegal in the city seemed to do nothing to stop it, what a surprise._

The subway train pulls up to the platform and Nick mindless scans his metro card as he makes his way into the car. More mammals are on the subway at this time and many take notices of the Fox making his way onto the subway. _At least I wasn’t in trouble I guess, still can’t help feeling that I’ve made a mistake getting myself wrapped up in this case. On the bright side I’ve got something to take my mind off things, that’s good. So, let’s see, Buffalo butt told us they don’t know much. Pretty much all we got is a new Night Howler drug, but we don’t know when, where, how or why. We THINK we know what it used to be called and we THINK we know what it’s called now. Cobalt. That’s nothing, that’s hardly any information at all really, fuck that’s really nothing._ Nick puts his paw to his face, gently running his claws through his jaw fur deep in thought. The subway jostles its occupants, but it goes for the large part unnoticed, especially by the fox reasoning out the new information. The ride is uneventful, like a subway ride should be, and soon enough the fox finds himself making his way up the subway exit stairs and towards his apartment building. Having thought about possible fun and non-life threating Night Howler drugs the whole ride but having nothing to show for it.

His body seems to go into auto pilot as he makes it to his bedroom and starts the mundane tasks of taking care of his den and himself. First on the agenda was getting some food, which is leftover pizza that is only a day or so old. While he finishes that off, he scans the news for himself, which it seems they have yet to catch up to the curve in that department and lack a segment on the first Fox officer. Or maybe it had already run, and he missed it, either way he throws the pizza box away and heads for the bathroom. He changes into some more comfortable lounge wear, gathers up his dirty clothes and checks the time. It is getting late, which is just the time he likes to go and wash clothes. He double checks to make sure he’s gotten the most important clothes, which he does.

Nick pushes open his apartment door with his foot, he then turns to his side and slides through the door with his basket full of dirty clothes. It is fairly late now and most all the diurnal mammals have gone to sleep, and even some nocturnal have turned in for the night. Some were waking up for night shift jobs or the odd night out, but most are asleep. This is Nicks favorite time to do chores, he is nocturnal, for one, so staying up this late doesn’t bother him. It also helps that he is almost always the only one in the apartment laundry room at this odd time of night, in-between the busy times.

               He walks down the dimly lit hall, easily navigating it thanks to his natural night vision. He wonders why they don’t just turn the lights off all the way at this time, or at least red light it. He figures it is because this is a lightly mixed apartment, catering to pretty much all types of mammals but mouse and buffalo and up in terms of size. Although mainly predators stay here as far as he can tell, he guesses that some prey must live here judging from the lights. His level is larger than he needs it to be, taking up to wolf, he wanted to find something more his size, but in his haste to find an apartment, this was the best he could do. The building is very nice, and well kept, meaning the rent is partially outside of his price range. Being a police officer came with great benefits, but its pay wasn’t the best it could be, and he has underestimated how much living here plus other necessities would cost. He contemplates where else he could get an apartment with easy travel distance to the ZPD headquarters but also cost less than where he is now. The chances are smaller than a mouse. Although, having an actual job means more consent income then conning, but its monthly hauls seem small to what Nick remember he could make on the streets. He ponders if this is just the way it feels, or a fact as he makes it down the stairs and towards the laundry room.

               “well good afternoon, Abby, I see they got you working the night shift?” Walking through the front lobby Nick greats the mammal manning the front desk.

“Good afternoon, Nic- Er Oh, I guess your _Officer Wilde,_ now, aren’t you? Good first day?” The reindeer gives a little smirk saying his full title, getting a smile from him.

“A long first day, and just call me Nick, but only when I’m off duty.” Nick gives a little wink to her and she laughs.

“You know I saw you on the front page of Ears Up, giving those wolfs girls that kind of smile, might give some mammals the wrong idea, you know?” the doe wiggles her eyebrows at Nick Who rolls his eyes in reply.

“Aww come on Abby, I’m just having some good fun, you know me.” The fox stops his walk towards the laundry room beside the front desk.

“I know I know, and I’m sure now you can have your pick of any cute little vixen you want now, can’t you?” The doe laughs and smiles, Nick chuckles and restarts his walk towards the laundry room.

“Sure, something like that, catch you later.”

“See ya, _Officer_.” Abby laughs and then turns back to her computer. Nick keeps his smile until he turns a corner headed towards the laundry room. _My pick of all the vixens, sure._ Nick pushes his thoughts to the back of his head.

He makes it down the hall and to the laundry room. He hikes his clothes baskets up with the help of his leg and opens the door. The door is quite big, big enough for a full-sized tiger, so it takes a little extra effort to push open. Nick wishes they had replaced it with one of those multi doors. The multi doors have smaller doors built into them for mammals of a smaller size, but unfortunately this door is not as modern. It does, however, have multiple door handles so shorter mammals didn’t have to reach up or bigger have to reach down. This was better then what he had seen some places do, like putting a chair or step stool for the smaller residence and basically saying “good luck”. He figures he should count himself lucky, but the door didn’t make up for all the rest of the hardships he had been through, or at least he hopes it doesn’t.

Just as he expects, he is the only one doing laundry at this time of night. He picks the washers and dryer comb he always goes to, on the small mammal side of the room, and opens it. He throws all his clothes in and shuts the door. He quickly clicks through the options on the control panel and the washer begins to fill with water. He sighs and leans against it while pulling out his phone. He opens up a web browser and searches “Ears Up”. Sure enough, there he is on the front page of the news website. It seems to be the picture the wolf girls had taken, and some scrolling down the page reviles it had been.

“We got to see him on his first day as officially being part of the ZPD!” is what one of the girls Ears Up claimed had said when asked about the picture. Nick scrolls back up and examines it. It is a little blurry, could have been focused better, but all in all it isn’t too bad. He chuckles at the toothy grin he had given the camera; the Pawpsicle was visible but the short article about the first Fox cop seems to skip this detail. Instead the article was mostly about announcing his first day on the force, the few things the public new about the Bellwether case and then predictions as to how this is all going to play out. Nick scrolls down to the comments under the article, this is usually his favorite place on most of these things.

Most of the comments are the generic ones he’s seen, such as “Can’t wait to see what he can do.” And “The first fox cop, what a time to be alive.” Or some version of the sort. Of course, they are mixed in with all the naysayers, which he does his best to block out. As he kept scrolling one caught his attention. It had 56 comments added in the conversion tab under the comment itself. Nicks eyes shoot up to the comment that started such a long discussion.

LOTSofWOLF: “Me oh my, isnt he just SO HOT? And those teeth! hmmm I would love to have a go at him!”

Nick raises an eyebrow at this. The profile picture for the user LOTSofWOLF is, as expected, a picture of a wolf, and a female at that. Nick clicks on the “view all replies” button and a list of all the replies loads under its parent comment. Not to his surprise, the replies are all less than friendly. The first is what he excepts it to be.

MouseMouse: “You sick twisted freak, how could you say that?”

RoverDover: “Your not actually a wolf though right?”

Mattxxx12: “she better not be a wolf! But really there is now way she’s actually a wolf”

Mattxxx12: “Prob just a vixen with a wolf pro pic?.... I hope”

ImadeTHIS: “aw come on she was just joking”

LOTSofWOLF: “No, I am a wolf, I know what I said…”

MouseMouse: “First a fox cop and now a wolf that wants to fuck him, god has left us to burn”

KGwalker: “I don’t believe this, its to out there to be true”

Small2442: “wolf are fucking gross anyways, here is just another reason.”

LOX-Fox: “u need to be put in a mental hospital, LOTSofWOLF, there is something wrong with u. im the only one who should have a real “go at him”.”

Nick flicks his finger and quickly scrolls through the rest of the comments, skimming them. The rest of it is other mammals voicing their opinions on the matter or how to deal with LOTSofWOLF. Some suggest the mental hospital, others suggest jail, other still suggest that this had to be a joke or trolling, while someone else suggests that their account must have been hijacked by a friend. Nick sighs and closes the webpage. The comments hit a little too close to home on that one, he decides that is enough reading about himself in the news for today.

He looks at the control panel on the washer. 30 minutes until the resinse cycle was done, and then another 30 for drying. Nick sighs. He ponders what else he has to do before he goes to bed. _Lay out stuff for tomorrow, musk mask… I should pick up more suppress heat, almost out. And Aspirin, and I might as well stock up on food while I’m at it, shit ok._ Nick pulls out his phone again and goes into his notes app. He makes a new ‘note’ and begins making a list of items for his next trip to the store, whenever that might be. He doesn’t mind going to the store really, it’s just he would rather be lazing about at home or having a drink somewhere.

After a few moments he scrolls back through his list, making sure he has written down everything he needs. Skimming the list, he finds surpass heats and highlights it. He then taps the bold option, making the lettering much darker than the rest.  He goes to save the note but pauses. He feels like he is forgetting something. Something important, or kind of important. _Was it something Judy had told me to do or…? No? it was to get something or, look for something. I was already supposed to have it, or no, I should have already gotten it… Finnick! His gift, yeah!_

Nick locks and then pockets his phone. He starts his walk towards the mailboxes in the apartment. He exits the laundry room and heads towards the lobby again. Before reaching it, he takes a right down another hallway and comes to a glass door with the same handle setup as the laundry room. He grabs a lower handle and goes into the room. Small, personal mail boxes line the walls. Some big enough that he could fit into, but the smallest ones are made for his size of mammals. He goes to one side of the room and quickly finds his box. He dials in his combination and opens it. Sure enough, he is greeted with a large, beige color envelope. He grabs it and pulls it out.

It seems like there is a magazine sized book inside it, slightly bent from being a bit too large for the box. Written on it in Finicks sloppy, hard to read hand writing is “To Nicky, From his favorite son. Thought daddy could use this to find him the girl of his dreams.” Nick chuckles to himself. _Oh, this should be good._ Nick put the mail under his arm and makes his way back to the laundry room. He hops up on the small washer beside the on washing his clothes.

He slips the package out from under his arm and then spins it in his paws, making the top face up. He clicks out one of his pointer claws and carefully slices the envelope open. It takes a moment, and, in the meantime, he feels his phone buzz twice against his thigh in his pocket. He stops his current actions and retrieves his phone. Hitting the power button, it lights up the lock screen. He hastily unlocks it and dismisses the odd, pop-up message produced by his note app without even reading it. He swiftly navigates to the message Judy sent.

Judy: “Hey slick, how’s it going? What’d you think of your fist day?” Nick smiles and types out a reply.

Nick: “Disappointing.”

Judy: “What!?”

Nick: “I thought there would be much more explosions and hot babes to save so I’m pretty disappointed.”

Judy: “Nick… were cops, not action movie special agents.”

Nick: “Oh, well I guess ill be asking for a transfer then”

Judy: “You can’t transfer, I’ll be partner-less.”

Nick: “Aw so you really can’t solve cases without me, that’s IT!”

Judy: “I can to solve cases without you!”

Nick: “Oh, so its fine if I transfer?”

Judy: “No, you still can’t transfer.”

Nick: “So you’ve just been keeping me around for my good looks I see, can’t say I blame you, I would do the same” Judy blushes in her small apartment. She rolls over onto her stomach, attempting to get more comfortable on her bed.

Judy: “You are soooo full of yourself.”

Nick: “I don’t seem some bun denying it though”

Judy: “DO NOT call me bun.”

Nick: “What? I’m not allowed to call you Bun either?” Nick quietly snickers to himself, this is good, great even. He was starting to get tired of his current nicknames for Judy, and ‘bun’ had so many more possible combinations then just that. He repositions himself on the washer as the one with his clothes in it starts on the final cycle. He is in a much better mood than a few moments ago, having a conversation with his favorite rabbit is a great palate cleanser for the comments he had read in the article about himself. Too top it off, he also seems to have a fairly well thought out gag gift from Finnick.

Judy: “NO, absolutely not.”

Nick: “But why not, hun bun?”

Judy: “God Nick that is awful! that’s something my dad would call my mom!”

Nick: “Sureee, you know you like it.”

Judy: “I do not, but hey, I got to go for a bit, I need to shower.”

Nick: “Yeah you should, you smelled funny today, kinda like a skunk….”

Judy: “I did not, also that speciest, but brb.”

 Nick clicks the power button on his phone. The screen quickly goes black and he stuffs It back into his pocket. He smiles as he picks up the envelope. _She's just too much fun to tease._ He looks down at the oversized envelope and presses on its side, popping opening the top. He smirks when he looks inside, he was right about it being a magazine, and a thick one at that. _Damn, they should make me detective already._ Nick reaches into the envelope and pulls it out. _I wouldn’t mind the pay raise of… that position…._

               Nicks eyes slowly grow to the size of saucers accompanied by his mind going blank as the front page of the magazine comes into view. It has the “Tail Grabbers” logo across the top, featuring a cheetah, the company ‘mascot’, so to speak, laid across the top of the lettering. As the magazine slides out of the envelope it now exposes a busty bunny leaning over in a frilly bra and panties. She also sports a matching set of black thigh socks with garters. She is bent over, with her arms propping her up. Her arms are made to look like she was pushing down against the other title on the magazine. That title reads “Bunny edition: 276”. Nick eyes travel below to the subtitle below it. Printed in white lettering, contrasting nicely to the blue background, is “Bunny cop special!”. His heart picks up its pace as a somewhat primal lustfulness crawls up his throat. While his body was begging to know more, his mind was spinning, trying desperately to back pedal. He knows this is wrong. Very wrong. Having a Tail Grabbers magazine is bad enough with their already taboo advertising, but a bunny edition, and the ‘Bunny Cop Special’ no less. If Nick is caught with this, it would be over, there would be no turning back. He would have to take drastic measures to insure he doesn’t endure whatever horrid punishment might follow. His first thought is he will simply throw himself off a building, a very tall building, the tallest one he could find.

               Nick is surprised Finnick even managed to get a physical copy of this, not only because it is expensive, but it is also extremely taboo to have a Tail Grabbers magazine in the first place. 4 years ago, they started a new line of magazine. Adding another line of magazines seemed pointless since at the time they already had a seemingly endless line of them anyways, easily covering every species in Zootopia. The new magazine, however, was different. It had a lot of different species per magazine, not just catering to one species. The product line was called “The Watering Hole” and the first magazine put into print focused mainly on all different types of water going mammals. It featured otters, muskrats, beavers, mink and then went onto other mammals around that size such as weasels and squirrel. The real controversy didn’t come until the “Wet Pussy Surprise” issue, which featured a somewhat small variety of big cats mixed with water going mammals as well. Most pages had the girls posing alone, like in almost all pornographic magazines, but then it went further by paring many of the girls up to pose with different species and then lastly having the felines pose with the more aquatic based mammals too. The poses themselves weren’t all that provocative either, most pictures were even considered funny more than anything. With the cats comparatively massive size, the mink could stand on the shoulders of them, literally. Most didn’t know what to think of the magazines at first. A mink buying the magazine would be somewhat short changed because the product wasn’t just filled with the most attractive mink but then again, that’s exactly what ‘Tail Grabbers’ was going for. A way for the tabooer feeling mammals to get away with some of their desires while not seeming to obvious to others. Of course, when it was found out that this was the plan all along, the company was met with more backlash then anybody excepted. They then subsequently went belly up, it was the last nail in the coffin for them in the ever-growing digital age of porn. Although, in the time it took for mammals to deiced whether to make heads or tails of the magazine, and in that time the company had gotten away with publishing a small amount of mixed spices addition before they went under. The magazine that Nick holds in his paws isn’t a mixed species addition. However, it was made just after it was announced that a certain bunny was attempting the police academy for the first time and has them theme in it.

               Nick’s stomach flips around inside him. Knowing all this, a feeling of excitement rushes through his body with a strong aftertaste of guiltiness and denial. He can’t look through this, he shouldn’t look through this magazine. It’s wrong, very wrong, for all sorts of reason. He can’t help himself. His paws slightly shake from excitement as he carefully flips the front page over. The first page is a car advertisement with a pretty good-looking rabbit laid across the hood. The rabbit turns out to not be a rabbit at all and rather an arctic hare, as far as he could tell, but she made good contrast against the blue car. The caption above the advertisement reads, “It takes a real buck to make this car shake, I know!” He lets out a small laugh, it’s a bad joke, he has to admit, but he still finds it amusing for exactly that reason. Flipping to the next page reveals little snippets of articles and on what pages to find them. His eyes shot to a picture of a gray rabbit wearing a very reliving ‘police uniform’, if it can even be called that. Under the picture is printed “Page 23” in bold letters. The rabbit is a little skinner than Judy and has much bigger breasts. She is gray, and her fur pattern is similar to Judy’s but with much less black and she doesn’t have black tipped ears either. Her Blue eyes are also a good reminder that this fake police bunny isn’t like the real deal at all.

               _Not bad, that’s for sure, but you don’t do it for me like Judy doe-… this is a bad idea._

               Nick closes the magazine while shaking the less than ideal thoughts from his mind. The laundry room is still empty at this odd time of night and the only sound filling the room is the persistent hum of the washing machine. The room is dimly lit to help predators keep their night vision but is still lit enough to help other mammals see that don’t have the pleasure of being able to see in the dark. The end of Nicks tail flicks back and fourth in a vain attempt to let out some pent-up excitement and guiltiness. He looks at the magazine again, skewing his ears in annoyance before dropping it back into his lap. He stares straight ahead for a moment, looking at the main entrance to laundry room. His eye twitches as his grip around the “Tail Grabbers: Bunny cop special” issue tightens. He loosens his grip then looks around the room. He's the only one there. He can’t help himself. He can’t stop himself. He frantically opens the magazine again and flips through the pages until he lands on page 23, the Bunny cop section of the issue.

               His eyes trace over the slender form of a rabbit dressed in an extremely reviling police-esque uninform. The first picture, farthest left on the page, has a full body shot of a grey tented rabbit. Her fur is much lighter than Judy’s and she lacks the black tipped ears. The gray reseeds much quicker into white than Judy’s as well. Her gaze was cast in a slutty, half lidded bedroom eyes glance. Her dark blue eyes match her fake police uniform well, which is a one-piece suit like the real one the real rabbit officer wears. The suits legs stop above her knees, the zipper in the front was half undone, revealing the space in between the rabbit’s breasts which are quite large on the rabbit’s smaller frame. One paw is holding a night stick while the other catches the end of it, the picture must have been taken mid-swing when she was playfully tapping it into her paw. She stands beside a police car which is, to Nicks surprise, real. They skillfully left its unit number out of frame. He smirks at that, _looks like I’m not the only one to skim the outskirts of the rules on the force. I wonder who pulled this off? I need to meet them._

               His eyes move from the left to the right, hungerly taking in the next set of pictures. The Judy-not-so-look-alike now took a pose leaned up against the cruiser. It was amusing to see the rabbit leaned up against something that is clearly made for wolfs or tigers while trying to look tough. She has her paws crossed over her chest, an authoritative grin plaster on her muzzle and her suit zip backed up. The other two poses are of her doing classic porn star poses. They were most likely cheery picked out of hundreds that had been taken on that photo shoot. One is her looking back at the camera with her front away from it, smiling while her paws are on the front door. The other is of her looking back again, one paw on her hip and her free paw grabbing the half-opened door. He flips the to the next page, licking his lips and trying his best to ignore the growing pressure in his shorts.

The blue-eyed rabbit had taken a pose to something he’s seen before, but he couldn’t quite figure it out at first.  He tilts his head sideways at the odd feeling of Deja vu. Then it clicks. His mind nearly fly’s apart at the seams as he tries to fully comprehend and piece together what he’s seeing. His heart tries to leap out of his chest as his mind plays some pose matching game and pairs it with something Judy had done before. The rabbits left hand was on her hip while holding a pair of paw cuffs. Her other paw is held up and out to the side, with her pointer finger drawing the view into her. Her “uniform” is unzipped as far as it would go, a well-groomed tuft of chest fur and tuft of fur above her crotch is visible, sticking just slightly outside of the suit. Her right ear was bent to the right while her left was sticking more straight up. It was the hustle pose. The pose Judy struck when she had hustled him all that time ago, or at least damn close to it. The caption above it reads: “ _I’m going to have to ask you_ _to put your paws on the wall, sir.”_

               Nick felt as if he was about to have a heart attack. He hadn’t been this aroused since longer than he would like to admit, and it almost hurt, and he is looking at a rabbit no less. And now even thinking about his partner! _Oh no no no no no no._ His eyes quickly shoot to the next page, his shorts feeling tighter than they ever had before, and he had gotten this specific pair because they were baggy. The next image brought him no relief either. The blue-eyed rabbit is laid across the dash of the massive cruiser. She had finally taken off the upper half of her fake police suit, reveling her breasts and stomach fur fully. Her mid-section is completely snow white. The white fur covers her whole chest and stomach and it only starts to turn to gray as it reaches the very edges of her sides. Her ears lay limp against the dash, one splays out to the side and the other pointing straight away from her head. One arm is placed above her head while the other works its way into the bottom of her open suit. Her legs slightly spread apart, her paw pushing up the fabric around the crotch, showing the rest of herself and leaving nothing left to wonder. Nick breaths in through his nostrils and then out, flaring them, as if trying to breath in the scent from the rabbit in the magazine. He swears he can smell Judy. He stifles a small whine from escaping his mouth as his own paw moves down his mid sections towards his crotch. His mind did its best to replace the fake police rabbit’s blue eyes with a lavender color and it even attempts to change the fur color of the rabbit’s coat to the coat of someone he knew for real. He licks his lips again. he couldn’t help it anymore. He huffs in more air through his nostril subconsciously, trying to find some familiar scent. His paw reaches the noticeable bulge in his shorts, and firmly stro-

               The communal laundry room door creaks open and Nick frantically slams the magazine shut and uses it to cover his crotch. He looks up at the door to see a vixen making her way into the room. She hasn’t noticed him yet as she moves across the room. Something falls to the floor from her clothesbasket, she grumbles as she stops and picks up the article of clothing. She pauses while bent over and sniffs the air audibly. She looks up and quickly scans the room before locking eyes with Nick.

               “Oh, hello, sorry I didn’t notice you when I came in.” she smiles at him while making her way to a washer and drier combo just two units down from the one Nick is currently using.

               “Oh N-No its ok.” Nick chokes out. _Fuck. Me._

               “I don't think I've seen you here before. My names Chelsea **,** are you a new tenant?” The vixen seems to want to make ideal conversation as she loads the washer with clothes.

               “Um, somewhat, I've had a room for a little while…” Nicks eyes shoot from side to side, desperately trying to find a place to hide the magazine and save himself “but this is the first few days I’ve been here...”

               “Interesting, you weren’t here when you were paying for a room?” The vixen finishes loading her close into the washer, swishing her tail behind her. She leans back against the washer looking over at Nick, who quickly pulls the magazine off his lap and slams it onto the washer opposite of the Vixen, keeping himself between her and it. She skews her ears at him, flicking them to a new position, attempting to read him without giving away that that is her intent. It is easy enough for Nick to pick up though.

               “Oh, I was, um, studying at school? But was almost done and had been looking for a new place online for a while so, I uh, signed the lease when I had the opportunity… too...” He stares at her. She seems oblivious to the magazine of bunny porn sitting beside him. He studies her face, when suddenly her eyes get a little bigger and her nostrils slightly flare. She is breathing in his scent. Her tail moves fluidly from side to side behind her as her ears turn their full attention towards Nick. _Oh no…. OH NONONONONONO._ He can smell it in the air now too. His aroused musky sent hangs in the air around them and the most obvious conclusion that the Vixen could come to is he’s aroused from her. Nick internally groans at the aspect, _at least she doesn’t seem to know who I am._

               “Hey!” Her expression changes, and some new kind of excitement covers her face. “You look really familiar; do I know you from somewhere?” she takes a step closer to Nick. He leans back a little while moving the Tail Grabbers issue more behind him.

               “Probably not?” his answer seems to go unnoticed as her face lights up and her tail sticks straight out, becoming extremely bushy.

               “OH. MY. GOD. Your Nick Wilde!”

               “Am I?” _I wish I wasn’t._ The answer seems to go unnoticed once again.

“This is crazy! WOW! I mean, y-you saved the city! And you’re the first Fox police Officer! And we live in the SAME APARMENT COMPLEX!” The vixen starts to wag her tail excitedly but manages to let the initial shock slip away for her face and she mostly regains control of herself. Nick stares at her in bewilderment. How he came to be hiding a magazine full of bunny porn form a young attractive Vixen in the laundry room of an apartment complex after his first day of being a cop he will never know. _Well after thinking about it like that, I do know why I’m here, Finnick… I’m going to arrest him…_

“So today was your first day of being a police officer huh? I saw something about that on Muzzlebook! So how was it, your first day, I mean?”

               “Um, yea, I had a good first day, me and my partner pulled somebody over and um… ticketed him for speeding and running a red light.” Nicks eyes dart from one side to the other, trying to find a safe way out of this horrid predicament. He keeps his paw placed firmly over the magazine behind him. He can’t remember what is on the back of it and he desperately hopes it isn’t anything reviling. The vixen doesn’t back away and instead decided to take a step closer.

               “Your partner hey? They already got you paired up with someone on the force? I bet he feels pretty honored to have the most handsome fox as his partner on the force, doesn’t he?” Chelsea puts on her best smile. She pushes her ears back and turns the fronts of them down submissively, she throws in a long swish of her tail as well.

               “I like _Her,_ we work well together.” Nick does his best to simply move past Chelsea offering herself to him, hoping she will get the hint and he could get out of this dreadful situation. The vixen’s ears twitch, perking to attention. She ever so slightly tilts her head.

               “Your partner is a female?”

               “My partner is Judy Hopps.” The Vixen stares at him with disbelief. After everything that happened involving the rabbit, she thought for sure that the ZPD would have done everything in their power to keep them separated. Especially after Hopps said all those awful things about predators.

               “The rabbit, the first rabbit police Officer is your partner on the force? They paired the first fox with the first rabbit?”

               “yep, we’re partners… On the force.” Nick raises an eyebrow at Chelsea. Her paw goes to her chin and she rest her elbow on top her other arm in thought. Her hips rock out to one side, showing off her well-toned form. While she is looking at him, she seems to be staring at something past him. Her head is tilted slightly to the side. Her ear flicks and she comes back into the present.

               “Can’t you ask to be partnered with some other mammal? After everything she said, I mean, I just- it just seems kinda wrong to me that they would do that to you, especially after the press conference. And, no offense, but I mean your both the smallest mammals on the force, right? Doesn’t that make things more difficult?” Nick lays his ears back in a scowl. It seems the press conference incident hasn’t left he public eye yet, especially in the minds of predators which it effected the most.

               “Judy’s a great cop, and I’m more than happy to be her partner on the force. The press conference is in the past and while we can’t change it, we can move past it.”

               “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just thought it was a little odd. I know it can be dangerous out there and I’m sure you trust each other and have one another’s tails.” The vixen makes a swift move from the seemingly touchy subject, not wanting to ruin her fist meeting with Nick over something so trivial. “But I’m sure you also benefit from her being a bunny, she sure won’t scare away any cute vixens headed your way. If anything, she might attract some more satisfactory suiters, you know? Ones that might want to take a bite out of a bunny.” She smirks at his flustered expression. Most male foxes preferred more independent and predator female counterparts. After all, it isn’t too uncommon for vixens to make the first move in terms of relationships, at least for foxes. The thought of ‘biting a bunny’ quickly passes through his mind which only worsens the situation. _She probably means they would catch and eat the rabbit like prey, which I guess I find eating a rabbit attrat…. Oh Christ no! not like that!_ The vixen takes a step closer to him, right on the edge of what most foxes consider personal space, which is about a tail’s length away. Nick straightens his posture.

               “Heh, no, I don’t have to worry about that problem.”

               “Oh? So, your already taken?” Chelsea puts a slight amount of pout in her lips while her ears droop. The vixen can’t smell any females on him. In fact, the only thing she can smell is rabbit, which she assumes is Officer Hopps, that makes sense if they work together apparently.

               “Oh no, I’m not taken, it’s just I don’t have the time right now in my life, kinda married to the job.” Chelsea smiles at this answer. Everything is pointing to the best chances with her and Nick. He obviously thought she is attractive, judging from his nervous gestures and actions. The hint of arousal in his scent does nothing but excite the vixen as well, why else is he excited other than me? She thinks. They also live in the same apartment complex, which is the cherry on top. This really can’t be better. Judging from the Nick being the first police officer, she reasons that he probably likes a more forward and confident vixen, compared to a submissive one. She gathers her confidents and puts on her best foxy face.

“So, Officer Wilde, I was thinking…” The Vixen walks beside Nick and leans against the washing machine he’s sitting on. She’s inches away form his side and when she places her paws on the machine to help balance herself her left paw bumps up against his thigh. She takes her tail and puts it in between them, running it down the length of a Nicks right leg. The Long brush sends a shiver down Nick spin as the more basic sides of his instincts kick in.

“You were… thinking?” Nick bites his tongue to keep his actions in check. To much is going on at once and the horror of her see the bunny porn magazine just inches away from her in deafening.

“I work late hours at this fancy restaurant but there’s this great coffee place next to it, we should go sometime after my shift. We could even go get coffee tonight and talk if you have time.” She finishes brushing her tail over him and then focuses on her next move. She just needs to be confident, foxes like that, after all. She is sure she can get the first fox officer. “You know, if you’re really pressed for time, you can even come up to my apartment, I have some coff-”

**_BEEEEEEEP_ **

A loud beep comes from the machine, signaling it has ended its washing cycle and the clothes now need drying. The alarm nearly sends Nick into orbit and he jumps and yips from the surprise. The vixen, also startled, takes a step back, fluster that her date attempt got interrupted by the washing machine of all things. Seeing the magazine is left unattended on the top of the washer, Nick quickly moves towards it. He scoops the basket off the ground and snatches the magazine before the vixen can look at it in one swift motion. He throws the magazine into the clothes basket and then moves across the vixen as quickly as he can to the washer with his clothes. He opens the door to the washer and dumps the clothes into the basket haphazardly, covering the magazine. He picks up the basket and immediately makes his way towards the exit of the communal laundry room.

               “Hey-Woah- um wait! Don’t you need to, um… dry your clothes? And what abou-.”

               “What yeah of course, you gotta’ clothes your dry after you wash them, air dry them, yeah! Your right about that, I sure do!” Nick cuts Chelsea off before she can get a full sentence out. He makes quick work of getting to the exit and starts to open the door. His body is in auto pilot mode as he removes himself un-gracefully from the situation.

               “Hey wait!” The Vixen calls out after him and takes a few strides into the middle of the room, complete forgetting about the oddity of Nick not putting his clothes in the dryer. She focuses instead on the fact she is missing her date opportunity, which is made even more destressing because she had to work up so much courage to put herself out there. “What about our date! OR UMM- I mean! Going to get coffee or something?”

               “What? Yeah yeah, I’m busy but I’m sure ill have free time eventually, gotta’ have some fun in life you know? Anyways, its late, gotta’ get police for sleep work, you know, see you later!” Nicks mind spits out the most coherent sentence it can form as he off handily talks to the vixen over his shoulder. He doesn’t notice her face light up with glee as he runs out of the room and off towards his apartment. Chelsea excitedly jumps in the air, having scored a date with the first fox officer. _Wait, he didn’t give me a time or place… hmm playing foxy It seems, I like that._ Chelsea bites her lip and smirks to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Special thanks to my friends: Karl, Abby, and Matt for helping me with plot and spelling/grammar. Sorry about getting this out so late, school took up much more time than i thought it was going to. I also got hung up a little at the end of the chapter and i didn't want to skimp out on it so to speak so that added on some time as well. I hope you still enjoyed it.
> 
> In other news, i have a FanFiction.net account where i am also posting the same story under the same name. https://www.fanfiction.net/~closedcycle However i understand this site much more and i am able to post better notes to keep you readers updated better, so i suggest reading my story here. Although, story wise, the same thing gets poster on either site at basically the same time.
> 
> For the next chapter i have it almost done and it will be posted the 1st of the next month! unfortunately its to hard for me to post more than a chapter a month right now, i hope that's OK.
> 
> Again, thanks reading, i hope to see you here on the next chapter!
> 
> Edit: Line edits made April-19-2019


	4. Wild Dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed.

**The Best of You**

**Chapter 4: Wild Dogs**

Serena opens the door of her truck and makes her way down the two large steps to the wet loading dock pavement below. This time of night in the rainforest district, especially near the coast, where the sea is so close, the pavement always seems to be damp. The cougar’s hind paws grow wet from the pavement surface as she makes her way to the back of her truck. She pushes her paw under her shirt behind her back, double checking to make sure her pistol is securely stuffed into its concealed carry holster in her waist band. She gets to the back of the truck, steps on another step and up onto the small tailgate where she finds the door latch for the cargo bay. She slides the cargo door open, revealing the mostly empty hold, except for a few boxes and wooden pallets. On cue, a forklift pulls up to the back of the vehicle out of a large and decaying storage facility.

Serena steps to the side, allowing the lift operator to slide the pallet of crates into the truck. The forklift lightly bumps the front of its runners against the vehicle, making a hydraulic whining as it lowers the pallet into the bed. As it slides backwards, pulling away from the truck, Serena smoothly steps from the bed and onto one of the forks of the lift. The forklift does a tight 180 degrees turn and starts back into what’s left of the warehouse. The operator, another cougar, moves the forks down while driving so Serena is eye level with him.

“Well Well, aren’t you a good-looking kitten, care for a drink?”

“You ask me that every time we see each other, and every time, what has been the answer?”

“Well, the first few times I asked you, you said, ‘Oh yes!’ and then later in the night you were screaming ‘OH YES!’ but now you’ve been turning tail and giving me _that_ look.” The lift operator points his finger out at her, his claw extended accusingly. Serena’s muzzle scrunches up and she frowns. “And come on, there are only but so many of us Cougars in this shit hole, give me another chance!”

“I told you, Richard, it was a one-time thing, get it through your thick fur! You’re like a dog barking up the wrong tree, and you’re a cat for fuck’s sake!” Richard frowns at her and then looks away dejectedly. He turns his attention down the decrepit hallway of the storage facility. At the end of the wide hall made for lifts, a few mammals mingle around wooden crates stacked on pallets. Each pallet had a number poorly spray painted on it. It is difficult for Serena to make out the numbers, but she can manage well enough. She turns back towards her past mistake, Richard.

“And hey, speaking of you barking up the wrong tree, I heard you _pounced_ on something that was a little funny too, eh?” Serena smirks at him and Richard winces as if the words physically hit him. His ears push flat against his head.

“Oh, so there is some truth to it after all? I thought It was all just rumor, ya’know? But it seems you did have a little rough’n’tumble with someone, or should I say, something?”

“What other pallet do you want in the back of your truck?” he deadpans back. Richard’s tail flicks back and forth as it sits beside him in the seat of the forklift, his ears stay pushed up against his head. His lips threaten to pull up in a hiss, but he manages to keep his composure.

“OH HO! So its got more truth to it then I first believed, tell me, Richard dear, are those lionesses much different from us? She had six nips like us, right? I mean I knew you liked to play with mine well enough and I ‘heard that those other cats don’t have as many as us’, is that true? I figured you’d be the man that’d know. Asking for a friend, of course.” Richard stops the lift near the crates.

“What other pallets do you want? Number 2 all you wanted? When’s the others getting here to pick their shit up?” Richard pulls up to the jumble of crates sitting on the wet concrete floor. A few mammals mingle around the crates. An Irish-spotted wolf sits on a stack of pallets nearby but gets up at the approach of the lift, anticipating having something to do. His actions go mostly unnoticed by the two cougars as Richard crosses his arm over his chest and looks at his female counterpart.

“Don’t give me that, what was her name, tell me that at least! What was it, Felica? No, was it-”

“Faye is her name, and I appreciate it if you keep your muzzle stuffed in your own shit. I don’t ask questions about your illegal business and do the grunt work for protecting your god knows what.” He gestures to the crates on the floor with one paw while his other stays across his chest. “How about you just get your shit and don’t ask me questions about the lion I fucked, huh?”

“Hey! Serena!” Serena and Richard turn towards the spotted wolf yelling at them. He’s leaning against the newest shipment of good just a few yards away, cigarette sticking out of his paw, giving off a low glow in the dimly lit building. He points it at Richard and smirks. “You hear that Lion Fucker fucked a lion!? Crazy shit, huh?” Serena turns back towards Richard. He glares at the wolf, then towards Serena, a low growl rolls out of his throat.

“Great, just fucking great, now you’ve got them on my tail AGAIN with this bullshit...” Richard thumps his forehead against the steering wheel of the lift.

“Look man. Fuck, sorry. But we all make mistakes, I mean you were drunk, we look a lot alike anyhow, I’m sure when your drunk as hell a Lionesses looks even more like a cougar an-” Richard cuts her off, bring his head up from the steering wheel.

“I wasn’t drunk, unlike my ‘rough’n’tumble’ with you, Faye actually meant something” Richard glares back at her, deciding that everyone seems to know anyways, so he might as well get his side of the story out there. He frowns at the shock on her face. Of course, she’s shocked, who isn’t, he thinks. The hint of regret on her face also does little to calm his nerves.

Once his ‘friends’ had found out about his outing with a Lionesses his life had quickly spiraled out of his paws. Those that know either avoid him, make fun of him for it or tell him how sick and twisted he is. Richard thinks that this is “real rich” coming from a bunch of drug runners and killers, but he has little say in the matter. “Yeah, imagine that. I’m going for a smoke, tell Knot Lover over there what we need to know. Hopefully won’t see you around anymore.” With that, Richard hops off the lift and pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Walking towards what’s left of a door frame and another loading dock, he begins to light his smoke. Serena stares in his direction, shocked at what she has just learned. Not only did he not see it as a mistake, they also seemed romantically involved. She shakes the stupor from her head and turns towards ‘Knot Lover’ and quickly changes the subject, not wanting to try and wrap her head around interspecies relationships. Her job is complex enough and thinking of some grotesque off species pairing as being able to be serious and not just to satisfy some freakish kink is way more than she wants. She barks her orders to the grunts around her. They are good subordinates and do as they’re told. A wolf and black bear get the next pallet of crates onto the lift and the wolf takes it back to the truck.

Serena checks her notes; she has pallets 8 and 1 on the truck and pallets 2 through 7 are still sitting on the floor. She walks around them, double checking that they haven't been tampered with or opened. They aren’t, which is good; pallet 3 has, as far as she can tell, more than their normal run of cocaine in it, based off its origin and destination in her notes. She keeps her maw shut about this. The last thing she needs is her subordinates getting funny ideas and snooping through the crates. She finds ‘Knot Lover’ and relays the needed information, no more and no less. He grumbles at his new nickname but takes the information in stride as he’s done in previous meetings. He finds his sentries and switches them out and makes sure the next shift is prepared as well. He double checks their routes too, checking that there are no blind spots in his watch. After this he makes his way back into a makeshift break area. A few barrels and a piece of plywood are used as a table, which currently has beer cans and various guns strewn about It. He lays himself across a makeshift couch which is constructed of an old wooden crates and heavy cargo blankets. Serena has to give it to this particular relay point for their ingenuity. They had done the most with what they had, left a small paw print and despite the odds they turned out to be the better of the bunch. Organized crime works so much smoother than other mammals know, thinks Serena.

She makes her way out of the building. She stops just outside of it, looking off to the side of the warehouse noticing Richard. He looks back over at her, just outside of striking distance. He brings his cigarette up to his muzzle while his other paw stays stuffed in his pocket. He drags in a long pull of the wretched smoke and holds it in. The glow hardly lights up his face, but the glimpse of his somber expression made the situation clear as day. He is more upset with the situation than Serena had first thought, and for different reasons too. For the second time that day she stares at him with surprise. She quickly shoves it from her head and moves on; some things are better left alone. She doesn't need to get a wet tail if she can help it, especially from someone else's problem. She closes the door on the back of her truck and then gets in the cab. She looks over to the passenger seat and then frowns.

“Twitch, what’d I tell you about hiding? You’ve got nothing to worry about here, you’re being ridiculous.” Serena looks over her shoulder, between the two seats and back into the cab. A scrawny wolf sits in the corner of the back seats with a hood pulled over his head. His ears poke out two self-made holes and the tip of his muzzle just makes it out the front of the hood. His beady eyes catch the street light near the abandoned loading dock and glint in the dark.

“I don’t like it here.”

“Well I don’t give two fucks what you like, you were supposed to be keeping watch from up here in the cab.” Serena watches as the wolf reluctantly gets out from his hidey hole and moves up to sit in the passenger seat.

“If there’s nothing to worry about here, why watch?”

Serena groans and puts the truck into gear. “God why does Victor make me baby sit you!” She pulls away from the rotting complex and onto a back street near the docks of the rainforest district. This region of the Rainforest district, where it and the Savanah district meet, is closest to the bay. The area features many small islands dotted around the coast. Many ports make use of the small islands that are conveniently connected to the mainland by bridges. The ports are well versed in sizes for different species of mammals. Some are privately owned while others belong to the city, and some of them are somewhere in between. Many shipping companies own their own ports, these are easy to pick out among the rest simply because of their massive size. Some companies will even ship from select warehouses in the rainforest district into the bay and then circle around the whole city and end their short trip over in the far end of Tundra town. This turns out to be useful for one-day shipping fiascos and transporting larger things that can’t be moved through the middle of the city, such as steel bridging trusses or other large sing piece objects. However, with so many companies using docks of all sizes, competition is fierce and not all companies can keep up. Many have failed or are failing, and some come and go with the seasons. The particular one Serena pulls away from once belonged to a small shipping company that had tried to compete and failed miserably. Their dock and storage facility were left behind when they turned tail and cut their losses. What is left is now proudly being repurposed for movement of illegal goods and contraband.

She pulls out onto a lesser-used road near the coast of the Rainforest district and makes her way towards the slums of Savannah central. She runs along the limits of the two districts, using back roads and avoiding anything that would lead to a dead end if worse comes to worse. Their ride goes smoothly despite the risk, and the unsuspected van pulls into a back alley between Pack Street and Trip Street, evenly splitting the mile or so between the two. She backs up to another deserted building. This one is what’s left of a newspaper printing company. They conveniently have a loading dock as well and the cargo truck fits snuggly up against it. Serena gets out and, with a reluctant Wolf in tow, walks around to a seldom used door and unlocks it. Her first job now is finding Victor in this place, she thinks as she opens the door.

The inside of the printing shop has seen much better days, especially when it was once running and producing paper. The short hall quickly opens into the main floor of the building. The main floor runs the length of what is left of the structure. A building-long machine sits squarely in the center of the structure with stairs and scaffolding all around it. Paint flakes off every visible surface, it peels up and away from what’s left of the metal, surely carrying some type of lead poisoning or cancer-causing chemical to the over-exposed. The light covers sit dry-rotted over bulbs that have long since burnt out, protecting them for no reason more than that they had before and will now. The great machine once served a fine purpose. It had made paper that carried news to the many mammals of Zootopia. It printed out thousands, then hundreds of thousands and finally millions of newspapers. The papers carried news of good and bad and tales from far and near. It has been rebuilt over the years and had countless repairs performed by countless mammals. Some mammals had once even thought of this beast of a machine as some type of home. At one point a small rebel mouse colony tried to live within it but soon fell victim to the chemicals and poisonous ink left inside, and they left like everyone else. It had outlived its purpose, the digital age phasing out the past. It now rots away, broken, beaten and forgotten by most, its only visitors the small group of mammals currently repurposing what’s left as a temporary lab and home.

Serena and Twitch walk to the side of the massive machine and into a small office area beside it. There she finds Ivan, a brown bear, sitting on a desk he had pushed up against a wall. He has a beer the size of Serena’s head and has lazily drunk through half of it while she was away.

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching Doug?” Serena stops in the doorway of the office, putting her paw on the door frame and her other on her hip. Twitch walks past the bear and sits beside him in a decade-old plush office chair, not minding the dust and rotting padding that fly’s out of it when he plops down.

“He go nowhere, I watch him all day, it make him nervous when I around, and his helper, and beside I leave Chalk-y outside the door, he smell them if they leave.” With that Ivan takes another swig of his beer and glances at Twitch who stares back at him. “I missed you, talkative kitten, does not matter if Twitch stays or goes, he never say much, but you good company, all I had is my beer tonight and as you know, Chalk-y is no talker either!”

               “Well you’ve got Victor, don’t you? And stop drinking that, we need your help unloading whatever the hell it is that he got from his buds from wherever the hell he comes from.”

               “I think is arms, yes? Seems to me from what I heard. And Victor leave, go to whore house, again! I never see his kind anywhere, but I know now he is most definitely dog! HA-HA!” Ivan laughs and slaps the desk he’s sat on, causing it to crack and make Twitch jump. The dust from his movement swirls up into the air and about the room from the heavy breathing of the bear before settling in a new place. They had cleaned Doug’s “lab” room out very well and had done a fair job cleaning out their makeshift living arear but had left the rest of the place the way they found it. This room was no different. Serena coughs a few times in a poor attempt to clear her lungs of the dust.

               “Well shit, I’ve gotta go and get him, don’t I?”

               “Chalk-y no talk and I too big for door, you the cat that must get his tongue, yes?” Ivan gives Serena a look and she deadpans him. Again, he’s the only one that laughs at his joke.

               “Well you keep Chalk at the door I suppose, and get all that shit off the back of the truck and into floor of this place, I’ll go and try to get Victor out of his slump again, seems like I’m the real leader here sometimes.” Serena turns and makes her way out and towards the back exit of the place.

               “Oh-Ho! Don’t let him hear you say that! Then it will be HE that gets YOUR tongue! HA-HA.” Ivan slaps the back of Twitch as they get up and head out the door with Serena. The playful slap nearly sends Twitch through the rotten wall and out the other side. He stagers back to his feet and follows the huge bear out the door and towards the loading dock. Ivan opens the garage door and is met with the back of the cargo truck. He unlatches and opens the truck door and walks into the back of it. He starts to unstrap the pallets and pick up the larger crates and move them into their repurposed office. Twitch, being much smaller and scrawny, picks up the smaller crates but still struggles with them. Serena watches for a moment before sighing.

               “Alright, I’m leaving to get Victor, again, he’s at his club, right?”

               “You will find him there, of that I’m sure.” Ivan groans out under the heavy weight of his box.

               “Great, just great.” She throws up her paws in defeat and goes to the door. “This is wonderful.” She grumbles as she steps out into the dark alleyway and closes the door. She walks around to the back of the building where a sedan is parked. She unlocks it and gets in. The sedan is a nice blue, she’s fond of the color, she picked it out, after all. She notices the ‘truck gun’, as Victor calls it, an older beat-up Uzi, is coming out of its mount that is mostly flush with the door. She groans and smacks it back into place with her foot. The gun snaps fully back into its mount. She much prefers a shotgun over what she considers a pea shooter. However, the length of one would make it much to unweildy to get into and out of the car in a pinch, which is exactly what a “truck gun” is meant for, Victor had told her. She starts the car and turns the radio on while she carefully drives past the cargo truck and towards one of Victor’s more private clubs.

               After a few minutes of driving into the rainforest district, she makes it to the club. The front is hidden and hard to find. This particular one is invite-only, and if the mammal wanting in isn’t on the list then they’re not getting in. Simple as that. Once in, however, the club has the full arsenal of good time inducing substances and entertainment: dance floors, lounges, strippers, private show rooms and bars that serve all manner of alcohol and drugs, both legal and illegal. Serena raps her paw against the door a few times, she waits a few moments before a tiger much bigger than herself opens the door. She steps into the hall way. Blue LED lights line the upper and lower parts of the walls leading to double doors that make way into the main lobby. The only other door in the hallway is a side door that leads to a small room meant for storing items that aren’t allowed, like firearms. The tiger holds out his paw expectantly. Serena sighs and pulls her pistol out from behind her back. She removes the magazine then swiftly ejects the round in the chamber. The round flips up and into the air, reaching its maximum height before getting snatched by the cougar’s paw. She sets the now empty pistol in the tiger’s paw, but he keeps it extended, waiting impatiently. He glares at Serena while she puts the ejected round back into the magazine, returning it to its full capacity.

               “The rules for this place are ‘no firearms’, it doesn’t say anything about magazines or bullets. We’ve been over this before anyways, everybody knows who I am, I’m sure you also know I don’t need to follow any of the rules, just like the owner.” She puts the magazine into her cargo pocket and walks away from the glaring tiger. Serena doesn’t like the idea of giving any mammal her gun, especially her loaded gun, so she meets the rules halfway.

               Opening the doors, her ears fill with the blistering noise of the club. Electronic dance music is always the choice for such places and this establishment is no different. The cougar goes unnoticed as she enters the room. Directly to her front there is a large circular bar, and behind that a dance floor full of mammals. The dance area is big enough to fit 100 or so mammals, but if the crowds are good, they can fit more. To the left and right of the DJ area are small stages made for dancers and in front of those, to the left and right of the dance floor are two long bars serving most types of alcohol. A few small groups of mammals linger in front of the bars, talking and watching the girls dance on the small stages. Serena could tell from the tigress dancing on the left stage and a Wolf on the right that this is a mixed species night. These nights are always the most profitable but also more hazardous and complicated to arrange and make happen. Most clubs and other such business had found that throwing every kind of species they could find off the streets of Zootopia into an alcohol, drug, and sex fueled party doesn’t end well. Most normal clubs that are more accepting of customers don’t do it at all. Canine nights are complex enough on their own. The territorial tendencies and alpha mixing can cause fights, which aren’t too uncommon. It’s also difficult when there are so many different subspecies of canines and having a good selection of girls across the spectrum can be difficulty to obtain. Then, throwing felines on top typically causes a pissing match between them with who can agitate a dog the most. Having cats come into the wrong “territory” that canines will sometimes set up for the night causes even more problems. This is usually just between wolfs and other big cats but not restricted to them, and having conflicts between something like a Fox and Ocelot isn’t too uncommon either. With Catnip being a common party drug amongst cats and its known side effect of nausea and vomiting if ingested by a canine, it commonly gets slipped into food and drink.

All this being the case, most places find it best to let each species have their own night. A few specific types of canine could be picked, for example, wolf and coyote, and then just those subspecies will show up for that night. Then the next night could mainly focus on rabbits and hares or some other similar group of mammals. Victor’s private clubs, however, rarely have fights break out since they are so selective of their members. Mixed species night are often the more profitable ones simply because of the increase in mammals that show up. While felines won’t stay and watch the canine strippers of course, they will often mingle around the bars and lounge area with friends after their shows are done. This is where most of the extra profit comes from, by selling more alcohol to the lingering mammals in the club. Although, there is a more public club that she had been to that has mixed species nights, but she had always thought it much to hectic and overwhelming. There always seems to be some conflict at those few places, she remembers.

Serena walks around to the right of the circular bar and towards the canine area. At the furthest two ends of the club, two smaller stages are set, meant for specific species. The stages are to the left and right of the dance floor, which is a good buffer to sperate the different types of Mammals. They are mirror copies of each other, and a walkway comes out from the front leading to a small circular platform with a pole staked in the middle. Semicircular couches sit around it and as expected on this side of the club, Serena can see the seats are filled with Wolfs. A gorgeous black wolf dances on the smaller circle stage while another gray wolf works her way onto the main. Serena had seen the black wolf here a few times since she is so noteworthy. Her black fur covers all her body except between her breast and up the underside of her neck. There the color turns a deep crimson and one would have to be very close and in good lighting to notice the difference. However, the black fur makes her unique and a huge attraction for the males sitting around the stage watching. She is halfway through her act, Serena guessed, since she still has about half her clothes on. She grabs the pole she’s dancing around and swings around it, flipping her tail out over the small stages. She tempts the males to try and grab it as it skirts just out of reach in front of them. Serena walks towards the space in between the dance floor and the walkway stage. At the back of the club to the left of the specific species stage is a door that leads to private rooms and this is where she expects to find Victor.

She makes it a few paces towards the door before a paw taps her on her shoulder. She quickly turns her head around and is muzzle too muzzle with another cougar. The oddly lit blue flashing lights of the club make it difficult for her to focus. In her current environment she can tell from his smell he is male much quicker than she can with her eyes.

               “What are you doing? Your going towards the Canine staging section, the felines are on the other side of the dance floor. I can take you pretty much to the door of the changing room, if you would like.” The male cat shows great discomfort and Serena can’t tell if it is from over drinking or something else. He points hit thumb over to his side while his other paw keeps his drink from spilling. Serena stares at him. He seems to think she is a lost dancer getting ready to change into more appropriate attire for stripping. She doesn’t know whether to feel flattered since he is calling her attractive enough to do so or mad since he is basically calling her a whore. At least, that is how Serena sees the situation; or maybe he is just hitting on another cougar, it is hard for her to tell.

               “Oh, I know where I am, I’m not going to the staging area, no worries.” Serena watches as the male cougar’s face twists around in confusion. He flicks his ears, testing to see if they are still there and working. They are.

               “Well you’re not going to watch the girls, are you? I don’t think that’s allowed, cats really aren’t supposed to be over there or sit on that side, nor do I think that it would be a good idea, there are a lot of male wolves over there.”

               “Oh, No no no, that’s ridiculous, I’m going to the private show rooms to see someone.” The other cat’s face distorts and his ears skew in different directions. He looks to the side and goes into deep thought, trying to logically reason out the facts that he has been given by the other cougar. Serena sees the look on his face and tries to quickly reason out why her response caused such a reaction. She opens her mouth to further explain but doesn’t get anything out before he speaks first.

               “Ok, yeah… Um yeah, I’ll leave you alone, sorry.” The male Cougar gives a quick head nod and slight wave with his paw. He takes a glance at her, trying to better judge the situation. He then looks scared for a moment while looking to the side of Serena, eyeing the wolves behind her. He quickly makes his way back to the circular bar beside his buddy. Serena finds the whole encounter odd and even more peculiar that he is sitting so close to the canine side of the club in the first place. Although his friend does seem to be a wolf of some type. Serena shakes her head and starts back towards the door leading to the private rooms. _Surely, he doesn’t think I’m going to preform services on a wolf in here, did he? And why are they on the wrong side of the bar?_ She contemplates the odd details as she gets to the door with a wolf standing beside it. He looks down at serena and smiles.

               “Serena! Back so soon to come and get Victor again? He might be a little busy still… I’m not sure if he wants to be interrupted at the moment.”

               “Hey Tim, and I better try and get him, he told me to come and inform him of how my latest task went.”

               “Well you know best, he should be in his private room.” Tim opens the door to let Serena though. This first time they had met he wasn’t nearly as nice as he is now, but once he understood the situation and rank Serena carries within Victors unlawful empire, he happily assists her with anything she needs.

               Serena steps through the door and is met with another long hall. The sound-proof door shuts behind her and the hall becomes happily quite; she can still hear the music behind her but it’s much quieter. Serena walks down the hallway past a few doors till she gets to the last one. The unmarked door leads into Victors personal room. To the uninformed mammal, this door most likely looks like a door for a service room or closet, but Serena has been through it before. She also knows her boss likes unsuspecting things that blend in. She knocks on the door and listens for an answer. Not hearing anything after a few moments she knocks a few more times, much louder. Catching a groan and then a “Come in!” a few moments later she quietly opens the door.

               Her nose is assaulted with the stench of nicotine and marijuana with an aftertaste of liquor-mixed sex. She scrunches her nose as she waits a moment for her eyes to adjust. Once she can make out the curtains hanging from the ceiling, she enters the room. The LED lights line the tops of the walls in this room as well and are the only source of light currently on. Instead of blue lights, like the rest of the club, Victor prefers Violet in his personal room. The odd contrast in light disorients the cougar, but she pushes through to find Victor setting on the couch. She takes a few steps towards her boss sitting on the couch, but stops dead in her tracks as her eyes finally make out the situation at paw.

He sits on a half circle couch with his arms laid across the back. Another of Victor’s species, an African Wild Dog, sits legs spread over his lap, facing him. She has her head pushed to the side of Victor and over his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck and behind the couch. Victor is aware enough for his eyes to look up and stare into Serena’s, but his huge circular ears shows no signs of life or that they detected her approach. It becomes clear extremely quick that both the wild dogs are completely nude. Serena hates that she could count this as the second time she had walked in on him. She stares at the scene in front of her, her nose now focusing on the heavy scent of sex stuffed into the small room. Her eyes focus on the back of Victors Female companion. Her odd brown, black and white pattern is extremely disorienting, and Serena has trouble making out the physical characteristics of her back. Her tail hangs straight down, thankfully covering Victors manhood.

               “Fuck sorry, I’ll leave you two alo-” Serena is cut off before she can make her escape.

               “No No No, its fine, come on in, the bitch OD’d anyways, were just knotted up so I’m stuck here, what’d you need me for?” Victor turns his paws up slightly. In his right she can see the faint glow of a cigarette that he has somehow managed to keep lit in his current position. She can now tell by looking at the female canine that she is not so close to Victor by choice but rather that is the way her body laid limp. Her shoulders are relaxed and her head is slumped over to far to the side to be comfortable.

               “It’s fine, I’ll just leave you be, really, and I-um- I’ll get the doc and have him check out your fri-”

               “I already got the doc in here and he shot her up, she should be ok, she just passed out, I think, still feels warm so not dead yet at least. But I said come in and sit!” He points with his cigarette at a spot on the couch near him. She walks further into the small room, tensely heading towards the seat he gestured at. “And not like it matters that were stuck anyways, were different species, you and I, what’s it matter, you know? Anyways, what? You get the stuff? I take it that’s what you’re here for.” He leans his head back and opens his mouth to let out a long whine. Serena couldn’t tell whether it is form being drunk, the drugs, or being knotted to his play mate, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like he’s in pain. Maybe it was a combination of all the above, she isn’t sure. She sits with apprehension on the couch beside the groaning canine. She waits a moment until he’s done.

               “I picked up the stuff just like you asked, gave the guys at the docks the information you wanted as well, no more, no less. They seemed to be doing good too, by the way, a healthier lot than who you usually employ.”

               “The other stuff there?”

               “Yes, it was, 2 through 7 just like you said. None of it was tampered with either.”

               “Good, I was a little worried about the increase in drug running, we needed a bit more money to pull off this plan, you know? Like a lot more, Ha-ha, fuck, hmm.” Victor lets out another groan while Serena stares at him stock still. “God, even passed out she just keeps squeezing! Fuck!” Victor paws slam down onto the hips of the limp Wild dog straddling his lap. His cigarette sticks out between his digits, up and away from his playmate while he tightly grips her legs. He bucks his hips into her, grinding for a few moments. The pushes slightly lift up the passed-out Wild Dog and her head oddly bounces around against Victors shoulder. He pushes his mid-section up one last time, holding the position while releasing another groan. Serena covers her face with her paw and turns her head away. This cannot possibly be happening, she thinks.

               “Woo! Anyways, damnit. We need to get going, that’s enough of that for me until everything’s said and done. Give me a second, need a few minutes before I can pull out, ha, you understand don’t’cha?” he looks over at Serena whose ears are laid flat against her head while looking away.

               “Ah, wait, you’re a damn cat, sorry, yeah anyways, too much to drink, or whatever the hell I had, I think I haven’t had enough yet, I can still see straight. Anyways. Yeah, just so you know I had to really pick up some shit, I liquidized some assets, you know. That was part of that deal. You probably caught on, but you just witness a shit load of coke getting moved around. I haven’t moved that much in years! Fuck it felt good. I could feel the others watching me thinking ‘what’s ol’Vic up to now?’ You know? And actually speaking of that, we might need to do some housekeeping to keep the others off our tails until were done. I’m worried about Big thinking were going to make a move on him. Anyways, I’m still looking for an LER specialist to get us in. I’m not sure how that’ll work yet. That and what Doug’s been up to have been the most stressful parts. I should be meeting some guy soon says he can get us to where we need to be in that behemoth of a structure though.” Victor leans back and takes another drag from his cigarette. He brings his left, free paw up to the back of the female dog’s head. He rubs her gently in an oddly caring way.

               “About Doug, Sir, he said he needed some more medical equipment, he said what you got him was half rate at best and that he could have done better raiding a high school chemistry lab.”

               “He’s full of himself, can’t wait till I get to rip his throat out, that’ll be better than the half rate drugs and sex here.” Victor huffs and repositions his hips for a moment, attempting to pull his member out of his playmate. It is still stuck. “Hmm, well anyways, will be sure to get what he wants this time, I’ll make sure of that. I still want him to feel like he’s a little in charge though? You know? Keep him on his hoofs until its to late. I know he still trying to wrap his little pea brain around why a bunch of predators want him to do this. But just like with Bellwether all he can think of is that money reason. God the drug thing is hilarious too, I’ll have to give Twitch a good lick for that one! It might had even been a legitimately good idea if there’d be mammals left to pawn it off on afterwards”

               “I don’t think he suspects a thing. He’s been good too, hasn’t tried to run or anything, just asked for better quality clover. Are-… are you still sure about all this Vict-” Serena stops the thought as quickly as she can. Victor looks across the small distance with a glare Serena will count herself lucky if she never gets to see again. “Sorry sir!” there’s a long pause.

               “Don’t question me anymore.”

               “Yes sir… Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

               “They going to get what they wanted, that sheep was half ass-ing it and couldn’t do the damn job, I’ve suffered to much at the paws of weak scum who claim they’re all for harmony and peace.” He points at Serena again with his cigarette; the shift causes the head of his passed-out playmate to lay over limply at an odd angle. He keeps staring at Serena. “It’s time to start stacking bodies. That little ewe wanted fear and she never came close to it. She wanted scary predators and now she’s going to get them.” The unconscious Wild Dog lets out a small whine and Victors attention snaps over to her. He opens his mouth in an instinctual snarl. His lips come up, revealing the rows of his perfect teeth. Not one even slightly out of place, all white, not a chip or filling to be seen. Serena stares at his fake teeth. She had known this fact for a while, noting it not too long after meeting Victor. She had first noticed it when he laughed, his teeth simply looking too perfect, although she had never brought it up, nor does she plan to. The snarl makes her much more uncomfortable than she will ever admit. While her teeth are sharp, near surgical precision, his are meant for more brute force. Pure and unimpeded rage would have the teeth of a mammal like him, and that’s exactly what is boiling inside him, which is what sets off Serena’s shaky demeanor.

               Victor calms himself after a moment and while he’s doing so, he plants a few affectionate licks on the muzzle of the passed-out dog. From what Serena had heard about her, he had gotten her from his home country, which she still isn’t quite sure where it is. She tries to ask as few questions about that as possible to avoid conflict or knowing too much. She’s been his right-hand mammal for quite a while. She got there by doing exactly what is expected of her with a touch of cunning and taking things into her own paws when need be. This last bit is what got her to be where she is now. It is now apparent to Serena, however, that she is fast becoming the main line of support that Victor relies on and if he isn’t going to clean his act up soon then she will have to take over everything. This dreadful thought causes her to shiver, she pushes it away. She plans to jump ship and leave Zootopia soon anyways. She just needs to hold out a few more months or so. After a few more moments of awkward silence mixed with licking she finally clears her throat, snapping Victor out of his drug induced stupor.

               “Sorry, Sorry, cats don’t lick like that, do they? It’s a dog thing. Anyhow, time to get going! Hey also, make sure I stay clean for a while. We’re getting close to crunch time and I’m also worried that some of our other drug running buddies might think we’re trying to make a move on them or something. And like I said, we cannot have them messing with us. Not right now. I need your help now more than ever.”

               “Yes sir.”

               “Ok, let’s make some head way now, shall we?”

               With a slight pull Victor finally separates himself from the other wild dog. He grunts while he scoots her hips away from his. The product of their love making runs from her and onto the portion of the couch between his legs. He sighs and carefully leans the other Wild Dog over to his side and across the couch. He stands up, and with his knot still swelled, his dick flops around in an almost comical fashion, flinging excess cum across his legs and the couch. Serena couldn’t help but stare. She had honestly never seen a canine fully erect, at least not in person, and the anatomy is completely alien to her. Victor easily leans his playmate for the night the rest of the way over. He lays her sideways on the couch, making sure her muzzle sticks over the side of the couch in case she throws up. He puts his arms out and stands on his toes for a second, stretching himself out. His member sticks straight out from his torso and as he takes a step around the couch it lags behind and then springs around following his movements.  Serena catches a better look than she wants. After staring for longer than is polite she finally Is able to tare her gaze away from the dog’s crotch and look at his chest. She turns her attention to the odd thin strip of furless skin that runs down the left of his front shoulder. As he turns around, she gets a look at the circular furless patch of skin on the back of his shoulder, opposite from the front. The front looks surgical to her, it is very neat, while the back had to be some injury from something. It is about the size of her paw and has long tendrils of furless parts around it. She had seen the scars before and judging from his answer of “surgery” and nothing more she had determined it best to leave it at that. Although the scars look bad, it is a welcome relief from what she was looking at earlier. The knot is easily the most hideous growth she has ever seen attached to anything living and she could go with never seeing one again.

               Victor makes it around the couch without falling and finds some of his things and clothes. He fools with his shirt for a second, and after determining it is turned inside out, he tosses it to the side. More trouble than its worth, he thinks. He then finds his shoulder holster and straps it into place under his left arm. He grabs his jacket and with the help of muscle memory, is able to put it on. He sighs and stretches again. He smiles at Serena.

               “I feel much better getting all this out of my system for once though.” He walks around the couch, his dick flopping around but leading the way. He puts a little skip in his walk while going past the OD’d Wilde Dog and short table filled with lines of cocaine and empty glass bottles. He stops and swishes his tail back and forth while shaking his hips to a beat in his head.

               “The smell of your wet furrrr… ohhh, I wanna get close again!” his poor singing accompanies him across the room. Making it to the front of the room he finds his discarded boxes and pants. He puts them on with a lot of trouble, stumbling around while trying to get his legs into the holes. After longer than need he gets them on. He does his best with his pants and stuff his man hood mostly into his boxers. The knot isn’t going away anytime soon and when he turns around to face Serena a clear-cut outline of it and the rest of his dick shows through his jeans. He finishes tightening his belt and looks up at his companion. Her blush is easily visible through her tan and unique black muzzle fur, her tail is stuck out and bushed up behind her.

               “What? Never seen a dog dick before?”

               “No, I haven’t, not in person, I’d rather not think about it, honestly.”

               “Well fuck, it’s not the worst thing you’ve seen since you’ve been with me, is it?”

               “It’s the least pleasant thing I’ve seen on something living, that’s certain.” Serena had learned in the past that being as honest as she could with him is in her best interest. Victor huffs air through his nose.

               “And here I was beginning to think your staring was a sign of admiration and that I’d get a go at a cat before I die, what a shame.” He walks around to the table and picks up his wallet and phone, disregarding the line of cocaine his wallet had made its way into. “And excuse me, cat, but don’t your kind have fucking spiked dicks? Or barbs or some shit? Really? And your making fun of my knot? Mine’s not even that big compared to some! Jesus, the youth these days.” Victor makes his way out of his personal room and into a blue lit hallway. Serena decides not adding onto the awkward conversation is best, so she silently follows the most likely insane Wild Dog down the hall.

               The music slowly grows louder as they make their way from the back of the club to the front. It seems to revive Victor somehow and he adds a little skip in his step again and wags his tail back and forth a few times. He starts to hum to a tune of a song in his head and then synchs his ear and tail shake to it as well. “put ‘em up, put ‘em up, put ‘em up, or go awayyy.” He sings while the offbeat techno gets louder as they approach the doors that lead into the main room of the club. “What am I supposed to dooo, in this haaaaze” he drags out the poorly pieced together lyrics as he gets to the door. He places both paws on the double doors and throws them open. He strolls out into the club and goes mostly unnoticed by the participants. He walks up to a circular bar and slaps and smacks the counter. The bartender, a well-dressed tiger, comes quickly to the spot and awaits his orders.

               “Get the doc and double check on what’s her name back there, I’m done with her, for good now, she’s about a month left of free stay at my apartment till she’s getting kicked out. Make sure that the doc knows that and relays the information when she’s coherent.” Not waiting for an answer or even a head nod, Victor starts to stroll away from the counter as the tiger runs off into the club. He makes it half way around it before stopping when he spots the male cougar that Serena ran into before. He and the wolf sitting beside him stare back at Victor with wide eyes, as if being caught with their paw in a cookie jar.

               “You’re on the wrong side of the bar you know, Cats are on the other side.” Victor adjust his jacket absently mindedly while waiting for an answer. The male cougar regains his composer and straightens his posture slightly.

               “I know this is the canine side, but I wanted to talk to my friend here,” He gestures towards the wolf sitting beside him.  “and I thought it would be ok if I just stayed way back here near the lobby.” He gives a small smile and head nod. He looks off to his side at Serena. He then glances back at Victor, who is looking him over. Seeing them both come out of the private room area for canines was a revelation on it own but smelling the post sex on the canine caused even more alarms to go off for the cougar. The situation is made more confusing though since he can’t smell Serena on the Wild Dog.

               “This cat causing any problems?” Victor asks the unknown cougar’s supposed wolf friend.

               “No sir, were just sitting and chatting, and I wanted to watch Olesya tonight, not often you get to see a black beauty like her.” He nods his head towards the staging arear.

               “Hmm, glad you like her, she expensive, let me tell you.” Victor rubs his chin for a moment before continuing. “well, don’t cause the wolves any problems or you can kiss your tail goodbye. No pissing matches here.”

               “Yes sir.” The wolf answers for his friend, he seemed to know who Victor is judging from the way he addresses him, Serena guesses. However, she still can’t figure this other cougar out, he seems off to her. The wolf jabs his elbow into his cat friend, getting him to answer as well.

               “Yes sir, not getting into an um, pissing match.” Victor narrows his eyes at the cat. A tense moment passes before he sighs, relaxing his shoulders. His ears go slightly limp, laying out to either side of his head. He turns and waves his paw at Serena, signaling her to follow him. She does and they begin their short trip to the exit of the club. As she passes the cougar and wolf, she catches the wolf give a sniff in her direction. It’s subtle and if she didn’t hang around Victor as much as she has, she wouldn’t have caught it. She had found that wolves really can be subtle with sniffing and that they often do it to better judge a situation or mammal. She waits a few more steps before taking a glance back at them. She sees the wolf shaking his head at his friend. The cougar gestures wildly out with his arms and then points at his crotch, he then gestures back towards Serena and Victor. The Wolf shakes his head again and points at his nose while saying something back to the cat. Serena can’t hear what they’re saying but determines that they must hang out with one another since they both are so odd.

She makes quick time getting back to the main entrance with Victor. The Tiger stationed at the door quickly retrieves their firearms and has them ready to go when they approach. Serena grabs the magazine out of her cargo pocket, jams it back into her pistol and chambers a round. She stuffs the pistol back into her holster just to the right of her tail. Victor grabs the grip of his revolver and snaps out the cylinder while spinning it, checking to make sure the chambers are still loaded. They are, and he puts the Casull back under his shoulder. They make their way out into the street and towards the unsuspecting sedan.

               “You know it’s dangerous to carry that thing with all the chambers loaded like that, Victor.”

               “Dangerous methods for dangerous mammals, Serena.”

               “You know best.”

               “Damn right I do, now, off we go! We got shit to do.” Serena opens the driver side door and unlocks the car. Victor get in on his own accord while she takes the wheel and puts the car into gear. He watches the private club disappear behind him. They make way back towards the abandoned newspaper factory. He turns back around and looks down the road ahead of them.

               “It’s gonna be a shame, you know, all the work we put into my whole business going up in flames, but I just can’t take it anymore. All the looks and the staring, and not the good kind either, god how I loathe creatures that stare.”

               “Sorry.”

               “HA, no no no Serena, you mean no harm, and besides it’s not me that you were looking at hmm?” He winks at Serena while she rolls her eyes and grumbles as she makes a turn. “It is a shame though, you show a lot of potential, really, are you sure YOU want to go through with this, you’re really the most level headed of us all, I mean, you’re the only one who invested in stocks! Well, real, not illegal stocks, not fake drug stocks, but still.” Serena flicks her ears at his statements. They are true, she invested in some stocks when she had gotten paid for her part to play in the whole scheme and even before that while she was employed by Victor, she is always carful with her money. She hates when Victor crashes down from his high and starts his random, and oddly heart felt, ramblings.

               “You told me the terms and conditions of what is going to happen, and I decided to be a part of it, I could have walked away then, but I didn’t and I’m not going to now.”

               “But why? I mean look, I'd offer you my drug running empire but when fur start flying, they’ll be nothing left, you and I both know that, I mean shit, I’m throwing everything away for myself too you know, why get caught up in it?”

               “Something to do?” The answer causes Victor to pause. His stupor getting the best of his thoughts, it takes some time before he can recover from the answer asked as a question.

               “You remind me of my wife, and that makes me sad. Maybe that’s why I like you?”

               “Oh, don’t tell me you’re jumping ship now and getting on with the cougars?” Serena laughs, attempting to change the subject. This exact subject is what got her smacked the last time it came up. She is careful now to not make any careless comment when this topic of conversation comes up. Victor had never laid a finger on her in a malicious way until then and had many times protected her when things got out of paw. She had overplayed her position last time though and wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.

               “Ha – Ha – Ha, tell you what Serena, I’ll jump ship and start eating pussy…” he pauses and winks at her, getting a deadpanned look from Serena. “…when our Ivan gets killed by some small prey animal, I die by some savage mammal, and you don’t land on your feet when you’re jump off something! HA!” He laughs and fumbles around in his seat awkwardly. “But really, Serena dear, when all is said and done, before you leave, make damn sure you dart me and if you can’t dart me, make sure you shoot me at least.” He turns towards Serena and stares at her for a moment. “Serena?” She tenses up and turns her head slightly towards him, doing her best to pay attention to both the road and him at the same time. She hates the look in his eyes. His look is filled with determination, and determined is when he is his most lethal.

               “Yes sir?”

               “I spent way too much money on that other Wild Dog that we left in that club, do you wanna know how much I spent on her? It’s more than I’ve ever spent on a whore in my life, it’s going to shock you, you should pull over.” Serena lets out a small laugh and with it a huge weight falls off her shoulders. The tension that could have been cut out of the air with a razor blade is now, somehow, miraculously gone.

               “How much? I know you’re a real shewed when it comes to spending on things like that, that’s how you got to where you are now, Ill take a guess, say I get it right, you gotta take me out to a nice restaurant, as nice as I want, and I can g-”

               “Deal. If you don’t get within 1,000 dollars you have to tell me what you know ‘bout your ex Richard fucking that lioness.” Serena looks over at her boss with a pure shock-stricken muzzle. She has never heard of Victor spending any more than he absolutely had to on anything and girls and good times are out of the question until of late. He usually doesn’t partake in the games high rollers play but here lately he slipped into pure insanity from what Serena could tell. The fact that he cut her off so quick and accepted her proposal without getting the full details frightens her as well. It also shows he is confident she couldn’t guess the amount either, which is unsettling to her.

               “I- I, um Oooook? Um, a thousand dollars? Within a thousand, fuck. Um, ten thousand dollars?” That seems radically high to her. She throws all thoughts of feeling bad for Richard away. She wants to know more than ever how far her boss has come unhinged and how deep the shit she’s currently standing in is.

               “Little low there, Serena, but I’ll still take you out either way, might actually be nice, haven’t done that in a long time.” Victor nods in contentment, envisioning a nice and easy-going dinner at a fancy restaurant. He can almost think of it as a date, but without all the stress that one brings given that they are different spices. No obligations, he thinks, similar to friends going out.

               “But… How much did you spend?” She looks over at him and Victor obtains a wicked grin. She’s seen this look before. He had dawned it after a drug deal went bad. Himself and Serena stood on top of what was left of the mammals that proposed the deal, ears ringing from the gunshots and blood splattered across one another from the close quarter fighting. The deal had fully solidified their relationship, after that night, she was in, and in for good. While Serena feels good to be on his side, the look is out of place, causing warning alarms to go off in her head.

                “TWINTY-EIGHT THOUSA-N-D big ones. Serena, I brought her over from another country, made the docs look her over for medical, gave her housing and then PAID her on top of that! HA!” he starts to laugh as Serena swerves back onto the road. He was right, she should have pulled over for that.

               _The shit is well over my head. Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Special thanks to my friends: Karl, Abby, and Matt for helping me with plot and spelling/grammar. Big thanks to my friend Finn as well, he helped a lot with Bogo last chapter. I also need to give thanks to you! I really appreciate the support you all have been giving me. Thanks for the Kudos and comments alike, i do read every comment and message and i do my best to reply to them as well. The support is great encouragement for me to keep going and it does not go unnoticed. The next chapter should come out the first of next month if all goes to plan. i might even try to do a double update too, we'll have to wait and see though.
> 
> In other news, i recently read Watership down when i was immobile from getting my wisdom teeth cut out. If you haven't already read it i highly suggest it. I know there's a BBC series on Netflix right now, i watched it. it pales in comparison to the book. I highly suggest reading it, i loved it (its about rabbits).
> 
> Anyways, thanks reading! I hope i didn't scare anyone away with this chapter, it is a bit different but all should become clear as you get more information.
> 
> Edit: Line edits made April-19-2019


	5. The Beat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed. Thank you for reading.

**The best of you**

**Chapter 5: The Beat**

_Maybe I’m just over thinking this,_ Judy thinks. She drums her fingers on the top of the steering wheel in idle thought. _“Hey Nick, we should go have dinner sometime!” Hmm, but that sounds like I’m asking him out on a date… that’s really weird… and wrong. He’s my friend, he’s a fox… He’s a fox, so I’m not asking him out, because he’s a fox… Why does that sound so weird to me!_ Judy subconsciously scrunches up her nose. Her morning has consisted of attempting to figure out a way to ask Nick out to dinner. This should seemingly be an easy and straight forward task. Just ask him. She thought it would be fun for her and Nick to go out and eat somewhere nice to celebrate his acceptance into the ZPD. It will be a little, unofficial, welcome party, if she can talk herself into asking him, that is. _Nick needs this._ _Its normal, its like going to have lunch with him… just its dinner, at a nice restaurant, and it’ll just be us. That’s not odd, is it? We’re good friends, right? No Judy don’t question that! We are good friends… that go and have dinner with each other… Urg! Why is this so difficult!?_

Judy mentally shakes her head. _No Judy, get back on track, come on. Dinner. With. Nick. Its not weird. Your overthinking this. How about we think about where Nick would like to go? That’s probably much more productive. Yeah, that’s right, because it’s not weird. Now I just need to think of a good restaurant… for predators…_

               Judy’s imaginary pep talk with herself does little good as it sends her into another mental frenzy. She quickly comes to the realization that she has never went to a nice restaurant meant solely for predators. She’s a rabbit, of course, and going to a place made for a species practically the opposite of herself hasn’t been on her to do list since she’s been in Zootopia. Now that she thinks about it, she had only been to a pawful of nice restaurants more geared towards prey. She had gone out on a mandatory date arranged by her parents and a nice outing with some family who stopped by while moving. She had also been to a few nice places with the ZPD for public relation events with other officers but none of those places are anything like what she’s looking for. The other restaurant she had went to with her date and family are made for prey, so that is a no go as well. Even if she did know of a good place to take a Fox, she guesses they wouldn’t have much on the menu for her then. This isn’t too much of a problem, since the outing would be for Nick, but she would also like to eat something as well. Judy audibly sighs.

               “You alright, whiskers? You know, I’ve been told rabbits can think themselves to death.” Nick glances over at Judy from the passenger side of their police cruiser. They are parked in a lightly used parking lot with a good vantage over a busy street corner. They have been sitting here for about an hour since lunch, waiting for something to happen. Sometimes while out on patrol things can get slow and this is most certainly one of those days. This gives Judy plenty of time to think, which maybe in hindsight isn’t such a good thing.

               “That’s an old wives' tail Nick, rabbits can’t think themselves to death, that’s almost as bad as saying we can literally be scared to death.”

               “Are you sure about that? This one time I jumped out at a rabbit in my high school and it gave him a heart attack!”

               “What!?” Judy quickly looks to her side to see the smirk on Nicks face. He is joking, of course.

“Ahh, so if it is just a ‘old wives’ tail’ then why are you so alarmed?”

               “I am not alarmed. I was just surprised that you had a rabbit in your high school to scare, is all.” Judy says matter-of-factly while crossing her arms over her chest. She is an awful liar.

               “Yeah and I’m green. But no, don’t worry, I didn’t cause any bunnies premature deaths by scaring. Scouts honor.” He places his paw over his chest in a playful manner, mimicking a ranger scouts’ oath. “In fact, I didn’t have any rabbits to scare my high school.” He places a claw to his chin thinking back to his school years, checking to see if the statement is true.

               “Really? All we had in my high school was rabbits pretty much.” Judy reflects for a moment on the ranger scouts’ comment. It’s odd to her, it doesn’t seem like a very funny joke, at least not to her. In fact, it sounds more depressing, almost morbid, which is odd since it doesn’t seem like Nick is the kind of guy to be into dark humor.

               “In Bunny Burrow? You had only rabbits at your highs school? I’m a truly shocked!”

               “Har-har, crazy, I know, you’ll just have to trust me.” Judy chances a glance over at him and finds he’s got a goofy grin plastered across his face. She rolls her eyes and continues digging through her teenage memories.

“Well, we didn’t just have rabbits, we had a few hares, and actually now that I think about it, we had a few cheetahs, a leopard, a couple of sheep and a fox… I’m sure I’m forgetting some mammals.”

“A Fox? Really?”

“Yeahhh… he was kind of a huge jerk.”

“Ahhh, sorry.” The Fox officer repositions in his seat.

“About what? You didn’t have anything to do with him. I said he WAS a jerk, he’s gotten a lot better now. My parents actually sell him produce for baking, he’s got quite the business going in the Tri Burrows from what I hear.” Judy scans the streets again. No shifty looking mammals or anyone looking like there in need of help. In one way, a morning like this is nice, its easy going and not really dangerous, but in another way, it makes her a little stir crazy.

“Well that’s good, I’m glad things worked out well.”

“Yeah me too, I’m glad my parents work with him too. They weren’t too fond of foxes for the longest time.”

               “Really? I didn’t really pick that up when they were at my graduation.” Nick thinks back to that. He had briefly met Judy’s parents at his ceremony. He figures that they were there more for their daughter and her speech than anything, but either way he took the opportunity to at least say hi and shake paws.

               “I said used to, they got better…mostly. But you said you didn’t have any rabbits at your high school? Did all you have were foxes?” She looks over at him and smiles, knocking him for his slightly somber expression.

“What? No, I went to school here. It was mainly predators though, so that is different, but we had a bunch of different species. Wolves, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, bears, foxes. If it had sharp, scary teeth, it was there ha-ha.”

               “Really? no prey?”

               “Hmm… a few. Some types of deer, I think?”

               “Types of deer? You mean species?” Judy giggles at his misstep.

               “Same deference, you know what I mean. Anyways, it was mainly wolves, God some of them were assholes.”

               “Well what did you do to them?” Judy looks at him with a smirk.

               “What makes you think I did anything to them?” Nick returns her cocky smirk with one of his own.

               “Because you’re a natural instigator.”

“Officer, I’m hurt you would refer to me as such without proper evidence.” He leans his head back and places the back of his paw over his forehead, taking on his hurt Fox persona.

“Oh, don’t give me that, I know you had to have done SOMEHTING to SOMEONE.”

               “Yeah, you’d be right, my pranks were legendary.”

               “Really now, legendary for always failing?” Judy ears perk up at his smile.

               “This one time I dyed a wolf blue.”

               “You did what!?” Judy’s face becomes shock-stricken.

               “Oh yeah, it was easy, didn’t get caught or anything.”

               “I don’t think I believe you. How were you even able to it without him noticing? It’s not easy to dye fur even IF you know you’re doing it.” Judy looks over at him in disbelief. Nick smiles and gets more comfortable in his seat. He looks towards the street while taking another sip of his lunch time coffee.

“The Wolfs name was Toby. He was one of the best Furball players in our school at the time, so I came up with a plan to use that against him, kind of. I planned I would sneak into the locker rooms where toby kept his stuff while he was practicing, put the prank into motion, and then sneak out. So objective number one was sneak into the locker rooms without getting caught. I wasn’t the best student and getting linked to this prank would definitely have gotten me kicked out. This was difficult and high-stakes, but high reward, I couldn’t resist.

“I waited until late one evening when they were out practicing Furball. The best guys would practice into the night, but the complicated part was the locker rooms were communal, so they always had some other mammals in them. I think the other wolves that were there came from another league or something, but not important. I had to sneak into the locker room, get to toby’s stuff and get out without getting caught. The problem was those other mammals in the lockers, that’s what I had to work around. First off, they could simply see me, but the bigger problem was they could smell me. But I had a solution to both of these problems. So, I snuck into the school that night, that was trivial. The laundry room was my first destination, it was the solution to the smell problem. They kept the dirty Furball uniforms there to be washed in these big canvas bags. So, I did what any clever fox would do. I jumped in one and rolled around in it.”

               “You did what!? NICK! That’s disgusting! Why did you do that?” Judy looks over at him with a slight amount of concern. She can’t possibly understand why he would go so far for such a simple joke. The thought of rolling around in dirty sportswear for mammals she doesn’t know is gross, and Judy has seen all manner of gross things from her many siblings.

               “Of course! And I did it to switch out my smell! The other wolves would just smell other wolves and not fox. Anyways, that’s not even the best part, right, I had to sneak into the locker rooms and past the other wolves, find the guys bag, and then get out. I had to turn the environment inside the locker room to my advantage, there were just too many other mammals in there. But I had planned for all this. I came up with a way where I could sneak in without being caught. Man, if my mom had found out I did this she would have been pissed, not that it really mattered in the end though.” Nick pauses for a moment and takes another sip of his coffee. Judy fixates on his last comment. She knows Nick and his mother had a falling out, as he called it, after he completed high school. At the time Nick had talked about it, he had said very little, other than himself and his mother not seeing eye to eye anymore. Judy didn’t want to pry at the time, and she left it at that. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t have been that bad, or at least not legally noteworthy. The ZPD is thorough in their background checks and if something truly horrid had happened it would have come up and been questioned. As far as Judy knows, that wasn’t the case when he had had his background checks performed. Either way, whatever happened between Nick and his mother seems to have gotten better. From what little he has told her she is much happier with his life choices now and they were starting to talk again. She thinks about asking him about it, but then passes the thought up. He’s quite happy right now, she thinks, she doesn’t want to ruin the moment with something that doesn’t seem to matter much now. Her curiosity still lingers, though. Nick finishes his swig of coffee and happily continues his story about the better days of his high school shenanigans.

               “So, I knew that the fuse box for that side of school happened to be in a maintenance closet in the laundry room. I was in good with the janitor for the fields. It wasn’t hard to pull a few strings, and have it just so happened to be unlocked that night. I opened the door, popped open the fuse box, pulled the fuse out for the locker rooms and popped a bad fuse back into place.” Nick pauses to take another sip of his coffee. He looks out of the squad car and onto the streets in front of him. The day still seems to be going uneventfully and the rest of the day just calls for patrol.

               “Wait wait wait, why did you do that? why did you put a bad fuse back…- OHH, you put the bad fuse back into the fuse box to make it look like a fuse had just blown! That’s pretty sneaky, Slick… Or maybe I should say it’s pretty _Foxy_ of you?”

               “Oh Carrots, you keep that up and I’ll be getting a new partner.” He looks over at her with a smirk, which makes a frown appear on the rabbit’s face.

“I’m joking, but yes, your right, they thought it was just a blown fuse. Simple trick IF you know what’s behind the smoke and mirrors, but why would I want it dark, future detective?”

               “That’s simple, your night vision is excellent, so I’m guessing it was easier for you to sneak about without having other mammals see you.”

               “Positively on her way to becoming a detective, do send your regards when you are at the top. Anyways, your right. I pulled the fuse out and popped the bad one in and the whole room went black. It took my eyes a second to adjust but soon I had snuck past a few mammals in the locker room and I was near where the teams kept their personal stuff. Sure enough, I found that assholes bag after a few minutes of looking, I knew it was his by the scent. I took his shampoo and poured more than enough dye into it. His shampoo was blue, and the dye was blue so you couldn’t really notice it. Now, the only real problem I had was that apparently the whole damn side of that school ran through that one fuse! I shut off all the lights on the fields too! And the quickest way to the janitor's closet was through the locker rooms. So, next thing I know, as I’m screwing the cap back onto the shampoo bottle, old McGee and John bust through the door all pissed about the lights being out on their sports fields. I ran towards where they store the Furballs and jumped into a bin of them and got real still. Now that IS when I got lucky, because my fur color is so similar to the balls, being red and all, and with it being dark they walked right past and didn’t even notice me! It was great! But after that, I put the shampoo back into Toby’s bag and slipped out the back through the indoor courts. I didn’t get to see the fruits of my labor until the next day.” Nick smiles while idly looking out the car window, remembering the look that Toby gave him the next day.

               “I don’t understand why you went to so much trouble just to dye his fur blue! I mean, couldn’t he have just washed it out? How did that even work? Wouldn’t the shampoo just have washed the dye out at the same time it went into his fur?” Judy looks over at her partner and examines the cocky grin plastered on his face. She doesn’t understand how she can find that smirk both infuriating and charming at the same time. He leans in a little, and Judy notes the excited energy seeming to radiate off of him. Playing practical jokes seems to be Nick’s true forte.

               “No no no, Carrots, were not talking about one-day-fur-dye-for-kits, here, I’m talking about dye dye. I mixed industrial clothing dye into his shampoo. It was permanent.” Nick’s smirk grows as the rabbit’s ears perk upright and become rigid. Her eyes grow and she opens her mouth in shock. The shock quickly becomes poorly suppressed laughter as her paws shoot up to cover her mouth. Nick smiles wholeheartedly at the reaction from the rabbit. He finds that he takes as much enjoyment from the rabbit laughing as she does herself, it seems. The fact that he is able to pull such a reaction from her makes it that much better for himself.

               “NICK! That’s awful! No wonder you were so careful with not being caught! They really would have kicked you out for that!”

               “Oh no, Fluff, the best part was the next day, after I got him, it was picture day! I gave him just enough time to decide if he was going to shave all his fur off or try and rock the blue wolf look. He went with blue wolf, it’s hilarious!” Nick throws his head back and laughs at the memory. He had certainly gotten a copy of the yearbook that last year, just for that reason. Judy’s paw shoots over to him and gives his shoulder a solid hit. This makes Nick laugh harder, getting yet another hit from Judy. He looks over to see her still trying to stifle her laugh, and still failing miserably.

               “Nick! You are so awful! That is so mean! I can’t believe you did that to that poor wolf; How long did it take before he wasn’t blue anymore?” Nick reaches over and jokingly pushes Judy back towards her side of the cruiser. She doesn’t move over very far, so he roughs up her head fur with his paw, which does the trick. She swats his paw away playfully, pushing it back down onto the center console. Her paw lingers on top of his for a moment before she pulls it away.

               “Ah, I’m not sure, I think It was about a month. He tried to dye it back to gray but that just made it look worse. He got the nickname “off brand wolf” which was even better.”

               “You’re so mean. I didn’t do anything like that in my high school. All I did was study… and I guessed I played some sports.” Judy repositions herself in her seat getting more comfortable. She gives the street in front of her another scan. Nothing is out of place and the mammals are going about their daily lives. This is good, this is how things should be, she thinks. She can’t remember the last time a normal patrol day was this great.

               “Oh, come on, there’s gotta be something fun you did when you were in high school. I mean you lived on a big farm out in the middle of the woods, right?”

               “Its next to some big fields, yeah, and we have woods too. Though, I don’t see how that has anything to do with me having a good time in high school.”

               “You mean to tell me you didn’t through any huge parties on all that land of yours? You didn’t skinny dip in the river or play fight in the mud or do some other country bunny things?” Nick looks over at Judy in mock disbelief. He can actually see her not being a party animal or taking advantage of her family’s farm.

               “I didn’t throw parties. My brothers and sisters did, sure, but I was too busy going to school or studying or taking exams. I didn’t have time to party. I also didn’t have time to permanently dye my arch enemy blue in high school either!”

               “He wasn’t my arch enemy, just someone I didn’t like. But don’t change the subject! You mean to tell me you didn’t go to any parties when you were in high school?”

               “He wasn’t your arch enemy? I would hate to see what you did to the mammal that was!” Judy ponders this for a moment. That is actually something she finds frightening. What would Nick do to someone he really saw as his enemy?

               “Ah ah ah, your ‘smooth subject deflecting’ needs a lot of work. Answer the question.”

               “I didn’t say I didn’t go to any parties at all, I just said I didn’t throw any.”

               “Ohh? So, the goody two paws Judy Hopps really was a party animal? I would LOVE to see that!” Nick looks over at her and wiggles his eyebrows up and down, getting a laugh from his rabbit companion. He has got to hear this.

               “I went to a few. None of them had anything I was interested in and none of the mammals that were partying were interested in me.” Judy shrugs. It’s a boring answer but It is the truth as far as she’s concerned. She did go to a few with a past boyfriend of hers; But she would really like to forget any of that ever existed. _Nick doesn’t need to know about that embarrassment either._

               “Aww come on, you didn’t go to any, ah, what do you call them-? Hoedowns! Your telling me you didn’t even go to those! You’re from Bunny Burrow. You’re a country bunny, right?” Nick laughs and looks over at Judy. There has to be some kind of mischief she got herself into while she was living out her teenage years in her home town.

               “A hoedown is not something I’d call a party, Nick.”

               “What do you mean? They’re like a country party, right?”

               “Quick, run that license plate number! VLC-5317.” Judy excitedly points in direction of the street.

               “What?”

               “The license plate number, enter it into the MDT, hurry, I think that cars stolen.” Nick hastily reacts to Judy’s command. His paws swivel the Laptop over towards himself and he quickly goes about keying in the licenses plate number he was given. While he does this Judy starts up the car and puts it into drive.

               “VLC-5317, right?” He types as he talks and enters the search into the database before getting an answer from his partner.

               “Yeah, that’s it, got anything?”

               “Nope, nothing, you sure that was a stolen car? It was a blue Mur-cedes benz, right?” Nick scrolls through the information on the given licenses plate looking for anything strange.

               “Yeah that was it, I wasn’t sure just checking. I couldn’t remember if in the brief Bogo said that car was reported stolen or not from last week or if it was something different, thought it was worth a shot.”

               “No worries, better safe than sorry. Hey, actually, speaking of buffalo butt, you got that email about meeting for the case tomorrow afternoon too, right?” Nick questions.

               “Nick! That’s confidential! You’re not allowed to talk about it outside of closed doors.” Judy scolds him, although it seems to have no effect on the fox and if anything spurs him onward. He smirks while she puts the car back into park and turns it off.

               “Yeah yeah yeah, super-secret, I know, but as long as you got it too, I didn’t want to go alone. So, who else do you think is going to be assigned to the case? And were supposed to get case files on it tomorrow to, right? How does that work if it’s not an official investigation?”

               “NICK! What did I just tell you!” Judy scolds him again.

               “Ok ok, sheesh! Ill wait till tomorrow don’t get your panties in a bunch.” There is a pause. Nick blankly looks out the window, his brain trying to reconnect to what they were previously talking about. Thoughts of the case and what the meeting could be about swirl in his head. He is nervous about it, sure, but with Judy there he should be fine, he thinks. A few moments pass before he finally hits on what they were discussing earlier.

               “So, hoedowns aren’t parties? How does that work?”

               “Well… I guess now that you bring it up, they actually are parties, I just never really saw them like that. I always thought of parties as something some teenage kit throws at their parents’ house when they are out of town and it always ends in some horrible disaster.” Judy turns the laptop around towards herself in its mount. She goes about taking it back to the home screen and getting rid of Nick’s licenses plate number search.

               “So, you didn’t throw parties like that, but you sisters did?” Nick asks curiously.

               “Yeahhhh, one time some of my litter sisters threw a big party at our house when our parents were gone out of town. That didn’t end well.” She grimaces at the memory. So many of her brothers and sisters had gotten grounded for that one.

               “Oh really? what happened?”

               “I don’t know, just your normal party stuff?” Judy’s attempt at an easy deflection fails miserably. Nick quarks his eyebrow up curiously at her dismissive behavior. He looks at her expectantly, not saying a word. Just a moment later the rabbit cracks and begins the story of how about half of her 275 brothers and sisters had gotten grounded in just one night.

“Ok ok. One of my litter siblings, Jessica **,** got this idea to throw this huge party and invite a bunch of bunnies over. She was dating Taylor Dig, so she invited a bunch of his brothers and sisters over and of course word got around fast that we were having a party so pretty quickly the house was filled with rabbits from all over. Rabbits do have a bad habit of gossiping a lot, were pretty social mammals after all, at least the rabbits in the Burrows. Anyhow, this all sounds fine and good until you factor in that it was my sister’s senior year in high school and all she wanted to be was a party animal. She made sure there was more than enough beer and mixed drinks to give everyone alcohol poisoning. So basically, there was a house full of teenage rabbits, pretty much unsurprised with more than enough alcohol. It got to the point where if you weren’t drunk or passed out you were probably puking your guts out; Or maybe you were having sex with one of my sisters in their room! Or maybe you were setting our family’s corn field on fire, because that happened, or maybe you were participating in the orgy in Jessica room because apparently it was crazy enough for that to happen too!” Judy puts her face into her paws recalling one of the craziest nights of her teenage years. “Oh, shucked corn! I will never forget that night.” Nick stares at Judy, his muzzle slightly open. He tries to comprehend what she has just said.

               “What?” he manages to peep out.

               “I know, not my most upstanding moment, I would like to forget about it.” Judy rubs her face with her paws, as if the action will scrub away the memories of her parents grounding everyone. She stops after a short moment and looks up and over slightly at Nick. He stares at her with an unreadable expression.

               “W-Wha… You didn’t do- uh- Did yo- Were you in the org-.”

               “WHAT!? NO! Of course not! I absolutely did not! I walked in on it! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to remove that image from my head no matter how hard I try. it was awful. I ended up locking myself in my room after that, I couldn’t make any of my siblings listen to reason. I didn’t want to walk in on another orgy or step in puke or have some wasted Buck hit on me either. I don’t know if you know this or not, Nick, but most all bunnies are super comfortable with themselves and, uh, when it comes to… sex and stuff like that… So, this whole situation isn’t too crazy… actually. If you can believe that. Now trashing the house and setting the corn field on fire, that was crazy, that’s what made my parents mad, not the drinking or all the sex, pre-say.”

               “That’s crazy… whewww… Yeah never mind, you were a party animal. I never got involved in an orgy in high school, Christ. Classic rabbit, though.”

               “I was not involved! and what’s ‘classic rabbit’ supposed to mean!?”

               “Rabbits are known for that stuff, I mean, you are good a multiplying, right?” Nick leans over a little towards her. His trade mark smirk and his eyebrow quirked up.

               “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

               “Absolutely not.”

               “Oh well, but you’re right, rabbits are known for being very, um, productive, in that arear of life.”

               “But not all, you obviously missed the memo, ha-ha, I mean you’re in your early twenties and don’t have 100 kids? What’s up with that?” Nick jokes with Judy.

               “Oh, don’t even get me started, my parents are non-stop with that!”

               “Wait really? I was just joking, sorry.”

               “Its fine, you didn’t know. But they think I’m unhappy and try to set up dates for me.” Judy says defeatedly.

“Damn that’s a little overbearing, isn’t it?” Judy sighs.

               “Yeah, I guess so, I’m not sure how it is for Foxes, but getting married before your late twenties is basically an unwritten rabbit law. I think my parents mean well, they think their helping by sending Bucks my way but it’s not what I want. At least not right now.” Judy finds it surprisingly nice to get this off her chest. She loves her parents, of course, but they just won’t listen to her. She believes they mean well and considering most all her litter mates are either married, engaged, or seriously dating it must be concerning for them. They seem to think she is getting left behind in an important part of life. Although, she lives in the city, which is a turn off for most rabbits and she has an extremely demanding job and doesn’t have time for a mate, let alone a family, she thinks. She doesn’t want to divulge to many details of it all to Nick, but she has to admit that telling him her feelings is nice. Pretty much all her brothers and sisters thought it odd she isn’t dating too, so it didn’t help to talk to them at all and this left her no mammals she could vent too.

               “Damn, so what do they do? Ask some Buck if they wanna date you and give them your number?” Nick chuckles at the thought.

               “Yeah, pretty much.”

               “Really?”

               “They sure do! I tell them not too but they don’t listen! It’s frustrating.” Judy’s ears drop against her head and she rubs them frustratedly.

               “Damn, that’s pretty awful, don’t they have enough grand children already!?”

               “I know! Thank you! None of my siblings understand, they all pretty much agree with my parents. And I guess not. It seems they won’t stop till I’m with someone, which I don’t see happening anytime soon so ill guess I’ll be putting up with this for a while.” Judy sighs. _Maybe Nick can come up with a solution, he’s pretty clever when it comes to things like this._

               “You haven’t liked any of the suiters they’ve sent your way?” The fox asks curiously. Now that he thinks about it, he finds it fairly surprising that Judy isn’t dating someone. She’s very determined, wants to do the right thing and wants to help other mammals. She tells the truth, tries to do what’s right no matter how hard it is and will put others before herself. On top of those great traits, she has a very successful job that pays fairly well, has good benefits and she is basically a public figure. _Maybe I don’t understand something about rabbits?_ Nick thinks.

               “No, not really. The first few they sent my way I went out on dates with to entertain my parents, I guess. Some of them were nice, but most all of them wanted to start a family and have kids. Which I’m not interested in. If they didn’t want that, they didn’t like the city and wanted to move to somewhere with more rabbits, or they didn’t really like that I was a cop because it is dangerous or something dumb like that. It was pretty obvious some of them just wanted a one-night stand or something stupid too. I told my parents to stop and they slacked off some but haven’t completely stopped. Now I just tell them I have something planned or I have to work over so I ‘don’t have time’ for the dates they’ve sent. That’s worked pretty good so far for the last 3 months or so.” Judy sighs. She perks her ears up, finally having someone who would listen to her ridiculous problems is nice. She also finds it especially easy too discuss this with Nick, more than she thought it would, which is a pleasant surprise.

               “You don’t want to have kits? Maybe that’s what their worried about and not really the dating thing? Just throwing ideas out there, as I’m sure you can guess I’m not an expert in rabbit courtship.” Nick takes another sip of his coffee to hide his ever so slightly anxious expression. Judy doesn’t say anything for a moment, thinking about the question posed to her.

               “I mean, I guess I would like to, maybe eventually. But not right now. I’ve just barely started my career in policing, I’m just a year into it after all. And I’m still young all things considered. I know most rabbits have kits around my age but still.”

               “Don’t they know it’s just the job, then? I mean it’s not like you’ve never dated anybody, right?” Judy’s ear drops behind her head, her heart rate starts to pick up as the subject rapidly becomes touchy. Nick scans the street again, missing the reaction. Everything seems fine on the street. He can really get use to this, he thinks. Nothing to do but drive around, talk to Judy and help the lost kit every once in a while, seems like the dream job to the Fox

               “Um, yeah, I mean kind of, I did in high school…” The somewhat dismissive answer turns the Fox’s attention from the street and towards the rabbit. He looks her over, obviously something is amiss. His ears skew subconsciously while his head tilts slightly, trying to better read the situation.

               “Kind of?” There’s a pause while Judy debates wither to tell him the truth or a very simplified version of it.

               “I-I just wasn’t very popular in high school, and college. Or, I was popular for the wrong reasons. Wanting to be a cop and not being interested in starting a family as soon as possible isn’t like a rabbit. I did date in high school. It just didn’t end very well.” She tries to suppress the glum overtone in her voice, but a fair amount slips out.

               “Ah, I see. I take it your dates didn’t want you to be a cop?” Judy internally groans at the completely reasonable answer Nick comes up with. She wishes his answer were actually the case.

               “No, not really… It was… My senior year I just had a really bad experi-.”

“We’ve gotten a call about a Ten-Fifteen near Grass street, their asking for police assistance, units in the 20 please respond.” Clawhauser’s voice comes over the radio interrupting their conversation. Judy quickly drops the subject and grabs the mic, keying it to make her response. She couldn’t have asked for better timing. Nick doesn’t need to know about all her past problems, she thinks. They are in the past anyways, no fixing them now.

“This is Officer Hopps, were close by and available, what’s the address?”

“272 S. Orchard Street, 30809. It’s a small auto parts store.” Judy drops the mic back into its mount and turns the car on. She puts it into gear but doesn’t turn on the sirens yet. She pulls out onto the main street and makes way towards their new destination, knowing roughly where it is. She looks over at Nick to tell him to key it into the GPS but finds he is already on it. She waits until a moment later, at a stoplight before picking up the mic again.

“You have anymore information on that last?” A few moments pass before the cheetah’s voice comes back over the radio.

“Store owner is having problems with a customer. Subject is a male coyote, average species height, roughly mid 30’s, darker coat color.”

“Ten-Four. On our way.” Judy turns on the lights but not the sirens. Even though quiet, the effect is immediate and once the light turns green cars move out of their way.

“Man, this GPS is not giving us the fast way, you’re going to want to take a left up here on Hoof street.”

“You sure?” Judy knows the city quite well now. She knows roughly where just about everything is, but some minor places such as the small auto parts store their headed towards now. She has always found the police GPS systems to be reliable and has only once deliberately diverged from the route it has given her.

“Yeah, will bypass that intersection near the Market, even with the sirens the other cars won’t be able to get out of our way if the intersection is backed up and around this time of day it always is. You can also take another side street off Hoof and it’ll drop us out near Claws Dentist, and it’ll be a straight shot from there.”

“Alrighty slick, I hope your right.” With that Judy takes the next turn, following Nicks directions.

“Oh, so you don’t trust me?”

“No no, I do, but isn’t this a longer route?”

“Well technically, maybe, but there’ll be less cars and we can speed with the lights on so peddle to the metal carrots! We got a coyote to arrest!” With that, Judy picks up the speed a little. While she can go much faster, it isn’t needed at the moment. While a call for a civil disturbance is not a call to take lightly, it isn’t a crime in progress, so speeding too much will just add unnecessary risk.

The new route Nick provides proves to be effective, and soon the pair finds themselves at the small auto parts store. Judy drives into the parking lot, lights still on, and quickly pulls the cruiser up to the side of the store. She radios into dispatch, letting Clawhauser know they were on the scene and currently looking into the situation. Her and Nick jump out of the cruiser and make their way to the front of the building. The building is made into two separate sections. The rear of the building has garages where mechanics can work. It has a small parking lot adjacent to it that currently has a fair number of cars waiting to be worked on. The front is the store itself. This is where what most mammals expect to see in an auto parts store, auto parts. Judy pushes open the door and is immediately met with commotion. A Coyote yells at a raccoon behind the counter, who she assumes is the store owner.

“I CAN’T let you return it! it’s electronics! We cannot accept returns on electronic parts, it’s not up to me!”

               “LIKE HELL YOU FUCKING CAN’T! You took back everything else, why can’t you do this too? you even took back the break pads! Why can’t you take this back? It was expensive as hell! 50 dollars for a light? What is you guys problem, anyways? JUST TAKE IT BACK!” The coyote yells at the Raccoon and then slams the product down on the counter. He slides it towards him expectantly.

               “I told you, WE CAN’T TAKE IT BACK! Just take your shit and get out of the store!” Nick and Judy swiftly walk from the entrance towards the counter of the small auto parts store. Judy scans the room, looking for other mammals of interests than just the two arguing. She sees a possum holding a basket with some items in it, watching the scene unfold with disbelief. Her eyes slightly grow at the sight of Officer Hopps and Wilde as they make their way up to the counter. Judy doesn’t see anyone else but the possum and judging from her scared expression she seems to not be a threat. Either way, the rabbit makes sure to position herself so she can see the majority of the store incase another threat were to appear. Nick follows close behind her, letting her take the lead.

               “NO! I’m not leave’n this fuck hole till I get my money back, bandit face!”

               “Excuse me!” Judy loudly says, making her presence known while walking up beside the coyote. He turns his head over in her directions and upon seeing them groans.

               “Really!? You called the fucking cops on me? You’n asshole. And its fucking predator rabbit with her Fox toy! They’re even worse than regular cops!” Nick’s ears twitch at the insults. The racoon leans forward, looking down over the counter too see the officers.

               “Oh good! finally! Get this guy out of my store, please! Arrest him for disrupting the peace or something!” The raccoon pleads with them. The coyote turns his attention back towards the racoon.

               “HELL NO, TRASH PANDA! You two officers tell this fucking thief to sell the right parts and that he has to refund me the cost of this damn light!” The coyote points at the officers accusingly

               “Sir, how about we take a step outside and talk about this there?” Judy motions towards the coyote, giving him an easy prompt to walk outside and hopefully deescalate the situation.

               “How ‘bout you get bandit face over here to give me back my god damn money!”

               “How many times do I have to say it, I CAN’T!” The raccoon pleads again.

               “Sir, I’m just asking you to come step outside with me here and then will try and sort this out. We don’t need to yell. Lets just calm down and I’m sure we can get this fixed. Officer Wilde will stay with the cashier here.” Judy stands in front of the coyote as tall as she can. She points towards the door, giving the now unwanted customer an easy way out of his current situation.

               “Not until I get my fucking money back, Hasenpfeffer!” He chooses the more difficult way.

               “Sir, insulting us isn’t going to help anyone here, I need you to come outside with me.” Judy eyes the coyote. His hackles are raised, and he is obviously very agitated at his current situation, overly so. This is a precarious situation. It is best if she can remove the canine from the store before she tries to sort this mess out. The coyote flexes his digits, showing off his claws.

               “This is bullshit! I’m not leaving this store until I get my money back! IM NOT THE ONE BREAKING THE LAW, HE IS, THUMPER!” the canine points at the raccoon again while looking at Judy. she sighs.

               “Sir, stop yelling, I’m not asking, it’s a command. If you don’t step out with me now ill be forced to arrest you.” Judy carefully watches the coyote. He shifts his wait from paw to paw, fidgeting for a moment before turning his attention from the rabbit officer back to the raccoon. She’s seen this before; The extreme irritability and anxious movements are pointing straight towards substance withdraw. Judy wonders if Nick is picking up on this too.

               “Sir, you should listen to Officer Hopps, let’s have a civil discussion. We’re trying to help you out here but yelling racial slurs at us isn’t going to help. Let’s take a step outside.” Nick does his best not to bare any teeth while repeating the message Judy tried to get across just moments before.  His ears are laid straight back, pinned against his head. Judy takes a glance at him. She has seen Nick mad before, of course, but for whatever reason these particular slurs seem to hit the right buttons to really piss him off. He hides this well though, and she only picks this up since she has known him for so long. She assesses where he is, in case she has to make an arrest, which seems most likely since the subject is becoming more aggressive by the second. The plan is simple, separate the two involved parties, deescalate the situation, and then try and figure out the details of the incident. This is basic police negotiation tactics they learned in the academy, and while it is mostly used for mammals that are arguing after a minor car wreck, this situation calls for it wholeheartedly. She turns her attention back towards the coyote, planning to try one more time to get him to calm down.

               “THIS IS ridiculous! BANDIT FACE SHOULD BE GETTING ARRESTED, NOT ME! What the fuck is you mammals’ problems! And coming from a skulker! of all the predators to be a police officer!” he points at the fox.

               “Sir, if you don’t calm down were going to have to forcefully remove you from the sto-” Judy gets cut short by another outburst from the Coyote.

               “How about you make this raccoon pay me back and then go fuck off somewhere and play predator with your Fox, pellet eater.”

               “Alrighty, you are now under arrest. Paws behind your back.” Judy reaches to her side and gets out her pawcuffs. She approaches the coyote swiftly. The Coyote smirks, and with a slight wobble of a step, gets lower and bares his teeth.

“Try it, cotton tail!” The teeth baring does nothing to slow the bunny and she swiftly grabs the canine by the shoulder, taking him by surprise. With the coyote awkwardly bent over to be eye level with Judy its very easy for her to reach up and grab him by the shoulders. She swiftly pulls him forward and to the side. At the same time, she places her hind paw under him, tripping him as he gets jerked forward. The move causes him to fall muzzle first onto the ground with a satisfying ‘thud.’ She steps to either side of the coyote, keeping him between her legs. She sits down onto his upper back and grabs one of his paws placing it behind his back, going about cuffing him.

               “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be…” The speed of the move stuns the canine for a moment and in that time the rabbit officer gets one paw cuffed. She starts to read him his rights while trying to get to the other paw. The suspect quickly gets his thoughts in order and shakes off the initial surprise. He takes his free paw and swipes across his back. At the same time, he rolls his body around, putting his back on the ground. The coyote gets lucky with the unforeseen swipe and smacks Judy square in the face. Rolling over also causes the dazed rabbit to fall off him and to his side. The canine quickly spins around and faces towards Judy while bringing his back legs up. He grunts as he kicks both legs out as hard as he can. The double kick lands squarely in her chest and sends her careening across the floor. Her short trip ends at the base of a cheap snack and sunglasses stand. The items are sent flying across the room and what’s left of the stand and items falls forward over the rabbit.

               The coyote, seeing his kick put the rabbit out of the fight, quickly gets up. He places his paws under him, muscle memory seems to take over as he gets his hind paws underneath himself. He decides to cut his losses for the day and run. The added realization that he just assaulted a police officer is more then enough to get his tail into gear. He makes for the door. He places his paws in front of himself, getting ready to push open the door so he can continue his hasty retreat.

His plan comes to a halt when he feels a heavy weight hit him from behind. Arms wrap around his mid-section and pin his arms against his side. The tackle causes him to lose balance and he face plants into the front glass door of the auto parts store. The coyote breaks through the tempered glass door, sending pieces flying out onto the side walk and parking lot. Mammals stare in disbelief as a coyote, and a fox dressed in police attire, roll out onto the side walk amongst broken glass. They skid to a stop in the parking lot.

Nick and the coyote tumble head over hind paws before stopping. Nick is able to keep himself glued to the back of him. The move proves effective, with the coyote landing on his front again and Nick ending up on top of him. Nick hastily gains control over both the coyotes’ paws as he brings them behind his back. He promptly finds Judy’s paws cuffs on his one arm and finishes the job. He finds it odd that the coyote isn’t providing any resistance at all. After cuffing him, the Fox gives him some further inspection and finds he’s knocked out cold. Nick breathes in a deep breath, the reality of the situation finally coming into full view as the now unneeded adrenaline starts to cause nausea rather than energy. He gets off the suspect and turns around, quickly heading into the store to make sure Judy is ok. He gets to the door before the rabbit practically runs into him.

“Officer Wilde’s in a Ten-Ten with the suspect, Ten-Seventy-eight and Ten-Eighteen.” Judy hurriedly runs through the broken door, her taser drawn in her right paw while her other calls in for backup on her radio. She runs into the Fox as she exits the store.

“Whoa, hey! Nick are you ok!?” Judy places her left paw on his chest and pushes out with it, putting some space between herself and Nick so she can actually see him. She looks him over, and after finding nothing too out of place she fires another question at him before he can ask his own. “Where’d he go!? Don’t tell me you let him get away!” Judy steps through the door and onto the side walk. A few mammals standing around the scene stare at the well-known rabbit officer with her fox counterpart following close behind.

“Whoa, hey, Judy slow down, I got him, are you ok? That kick was pretty bad.”

“No, I’m good, just caught me off guard is all. You good?” He checks himself over and notices some blood running down his right forearm.

“Got some blood, it doesn’t look bad though, let’s check out our wanna-be wolf and see if he’s brain dead or not first. I’m fine for now.” The two officers quickly make way over to the unconscious canine. They carefully roll him over and look him over. As expected, he has some cuts and is bleeding a little from being accidentally used as a battering ram to break the glass door.

“I’ll go and get gloves from our cruiser while you watch him?” Judy looks up at the fox.

“yeah, I got this covered.” Nick watches as the rabbit holsters her taser and jogs off to their car to get some medical supplies. She makes it around the corner of the building before her radio starts making sound.

“Hopps, what's your situation?” she hears Wolford’s voice come over the radio.

“Officer Hopps, disregard that last, Wilde got the suspect. Although we could still use that other unit, and paramedics… Not urgent, suspect unconscious.”

“Got it, were 5 minutes out, will get the paramedics on their way.” The sirens in the background come over through the radio slightly, given new urgency to the situation.

“Ten-four.” With that Judy puts her radio back onto her belt and make her way to the police cruiser. She opens the trunk and pulls out a first aid bag and slings it over her shoulder. She jogs back towards the scene where many more mammals are now gathering to watch the events unfold and get pictures or videos with their phones. She ends her short jog and crouches next to the unconscious canine now in custody.

“Hey Judy, let’s get medical up here and…” Nick looks around at the mammals starting to gather. “… and another unit to help us out here. I’ll run crowd control while you tend to him?” With a nod from the rabbit he stands up.

“EMT’s and our other unit are on their way.” Nick starts barking commands to the onlookers to move on their way as Judy gets her rubber gloves out of the medical bag. She puts them on and goes about checking the coyote out. She had found it somewhat odd at first how one minute she could go from fighting claw and tooth with an assailant and the next trying to save his life by applying first aid. She has gotten use to it now and it almost becomes second nature to her. She wonders if her Foxy partner will feel the same way about it? _Most likely,_ she thinks.

Soon after Nick gets the crowd to back off a little, Wolford and Higgins pull into the parking lot. Wolford helps Nick gets a statement from the store owner while Higgins helps Judy get their detainee into their car. The EMT’s arrive shortly thereafter and check on the suspect and Nick. Both just have minor scrapes and bruises with the suspect possibly having a concussion from getting tackled through the glass door. The rest of the afternoon is spent writing down details and taking statements from the other store workers while the coyote sits in the back of the police cruiser. Once medical leaves, and the proper forms and statements have been gone over, the four officers stand around Wolford and Higgins police car. They are mostly killing some time and talking about the events that just occurred before turning in the suspect.

“You really have to tackle him through the door though, Nick? I mean I know he called you skulker but damn you didn’t have to use him as a glass breaker!” Wolford laughs.

“Hey, I didn’t get the worse of it! Carrots here got called hasenpfeffer and pellet eater!” Nick laughs with Wolford as Judy shakes her head.

“Wait, Carrots? Judy, you hear that!? He just called you carrots! you let him do that!?” Wolford asks with doubt.

“You should hear the other nicknames he has for me, Carrots is the better one.” She crosses her arms over her chest and gives Nick the stink eye.

“Awww come on, we both know you love my nicknames.”

“Get over yourself Wilde.” She rolls her eyes but fails to stop form smiling and laughing a little.

“Hey, we got stuff to do, we should get moving.” Higgins interrupts the friendly banter between them. He glances at nick, his ears laid back. He then turns his attention to Wolford who subconsciously skews his ears a little. He can’t understand why his white furred partner is acting so standoffish in their current environment. Judy seems to miss out completely on the exchange, but upon glancing at Nick Wolford sees that he has picked up on it as well.

“Yeah, your right, we got to book our coyote anyways. I’ll see you all later, thanks for the help!” Judy makes her way towards their car while giving a slight wave to her fellow officers. Nick does the same and begins to follow her.

               “Hey actually, Nick? Me, Fangmeyer and Higgins are going out Saturday night to Tails’n Drink, you wanna come join us? We usually try and give an unofficial welcome to new recruits that get assigned here. I thoughted it be nice to have a little get together to unofficially welcome you onto the force! Judy your more than welcome to come too of course!”

               “Really? Yeah, for sure! I’d love too!” Nick says. He looks over at Judy expectantly, who seemingly is drawing a blank at their current situation. He bumps her with his elbow, knocking her from her stupor.

               “Oh yeah, I’ll come, as long as you don’t mind having me tag along.” Judy doesn’t want to be a burden to their outing. If she did go, she would be the odd one out. A bunny tagging along with two wolves, a tiger and a Fox would definitely be odd. Especially since there going to a predominantly predator catering bar. She has been their once before and felt awfully out of place and hasn’t been back since. Not that she didn’t like her fellow officers’ company, but it’s hard sometimes being the odd one out.

               “Absolutely, we would love to have you tag along. And it only seems right that you do so, I mean you’re the reason Nick is here after all. We’re planning for Saturday evening around 6:30-ish, I’ll catch you guys later! Have fun with the coyote!” The officers start to go their separate ways, the two wolves getting back into their car and the rabbit and fox walking towards theirs

               “I haven’t been to Tails’N’Drink in a long time! Man, I’m looking forward to that, that was nice of them to welcome me like that, too. Well carrots you were right, the ZPD is starting to feel like a family.”

Nick walks around to the passenger side of the car and gets in while Judy does the same. She internally curses Wolford for making her dinner plans with Nick that much more complicated. Now, if she asks, she would be asking to do the same thing just alone, which somehow makes her plan sound even weirder. Judy can’t decide if she is just simply overthinking this or if there really is something weird about it as she gets into the car. She starts the car and goes about driving back to the ZPD to book in the coyote. She internally curses Wolford for beating her to the punch for a welcoming Nick party. She finds herself thinking about how she is going to ask Nick out to dinner now, which just puts her right back where she started this morning. _Maybe I’ll ask Clawhauser, he would probably know the answer and probably know a of a good predator restaurant or something._ Judy decides that will be her next step, hoping that this wont backfire on her in some horrible way. _Hmm, I’m sure it won’t, Clawhauser will know of a good place for me to take Nick to dinner, I’m sure! What could possibly go wrong by asking him?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Special thanks to my friends: Karl, Abby, and Matt for helping me with plot and spelling/grammar. No double update this time around, sorry, i just couldn't get it done. But some good news, i should be getting some more help with my writing next chapter, hopefully this will make my fic have less errors and be more enjoyable to read.
> 
> Last chapter, a guest on fanfiction.net said that: “I’m getting a little discombobulated over all the OC’s, and this chapter was quite confusing to me. Is Serena, and everyone else who she works with drug dealers? That’s the simplest conclusion I can come to.” (In reference to chapter 4) Since I couldn’t PM them and I can’t see how to reply/comment to a review, ill do it here on AO3 and at the end of the chapter in FF.net. I hope you didn’t get to confused, but to a certain extent being confused was the intended effect so don’t worry too much. I know you don’t have enough information right now. That was done on purpose. The conclusion you have come to is the conclusion I was hoping and intended you to come too. That being said, since it seems you were a little more confused then I wanted you to be, I will take some extra time to better introduce some characters in the next few chapters. I need the readers to know the main characters before moving on to more complicated plot what not. I hope not too many of you are overly confused. Either way, thank you very much for your review and feedback! Also, Ive gotten some line edits on chapter 4 from other help. I plan on making the edits mid month ish (I got them way late, after i had to post the chapter to keep schedule) Nothing major, basically just spelling and grammar, all things in terms of plot WILL NOT change, just a FYI.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, in the next we will really get the ball rolling with the main driving points of the story, so stay tuned! as always, thanks reading! i hope to see you next chapter.


	6. Unofficial Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all types of feed back is much appreciated and welcomed.

**The Best of You**

**Chapter 6: Unofficial Investigation**

Nick takes aim and pulls the trigger, in a fraction of a second the firing pin dimples the primer, igniting the powder within the cartridge and forcing the projectile down the barrel with deadly force. The bullet flies towards the target while some of the excess gas is tapped out of the barrel to cycle the bolt. The bolt flies backwards, ejecting the empty cartridge at the same time. It reaches the end of its rearward travel in a split second before being pushed forward by a spring, loading a new round into the chamber and starting the cycle over again. Nick manages the recoil of the gun well, keeping control over the muzzle and quickly getting back on target. He waits a moment before pulling the trigger again, taking his time to make well placed shots. After three more rounds the bolt locks back, indicating that the magazine is empty. Nick relaxes his posture and points the firearm towards the ground while pulling the stock off his shoulder. He looks over at Wolford, who is standing beside him and watching him practice, providing instructions.

               “Good stance, you’re leaning just a little into the gun now, and you look a lot more comfortable too. You do feel comfortable like that, right?”

               “Yeah, it feels right now.” Nick stands with his hind paws roughly shoulder width apart, his left out front and his right a little further back. He wiggles in the stance, double-checking how it feels.

               “Ok, good, as far as I can tell that’s all good. Although your trigger pull needs a little more work, it needs to be smoother, I think your jerking to much when you pull it. I also think you’re anticipating the recoil too, which is a really bad habit, so we’re going to break you of that. Go ahead and call in the target and we’ll see how you did.” With that, Nick inspects the chamber to make sure it’s clear before setting the gun down on the bench in front of him. He taps some buttons on a small control panel to his left to activate a target attached to a track. The target begins to travel towards the only two mammals in the range at the moment, Wolford and Nick. The target stops in front of them and Wolford inspects it.

               “Damn Nick, not bad, that’s what…?” Wolford reaches out past the bench and holds his paw beside the group to better gage its spread. “Eh, about 12-inch group, off handed at 50 yards. Not the worst I’ve seen for sure, should have gotten all rounds on target if it was a wolf or something. Good job.” Wolford gives the Fox a solid slap on the back, jolting him forward.

               “Thanks, I’m feeling pretty good about it. The gun seems to be working good too. They said it might have some problems, but I don’t see any. The ZPD engineers really take their job seriously.” Nick looks down at the firearm. It fires the same ammunition as the model made for wolves in the ZPD, but it is made smaller, so a fox can handle it. The barrel has been shortened and the stock and pistol grip are made smaller as well, so Nick can properly, and easily, manipulate the firearm. The result is simply an all-around smaller looking gun, which is somewhat odd since the magazine is the same size on both models. Nick learned soon, after starting the academy, that a lot of new gear has to be made for him, such as clothes that actually fit, body armor, and weapons, both lethal and non-lethal. Even simpler things were modified as well, such as making showers where he can actually reach the faucets. He counts himself lucky that Judy paved the way for most of these things to be handled. He had heard of the ‘ _Judy fell in the toilet made for polar bears while trying to use it,_ ’ story from the academy. Which is somewhat scary because he knows first paw that a mammal can literally be flushed down it. He is thankful that toilets of his size were already installed by the time he was.

“Yeah, it seems to be fine, it’s just loud as hell with that short barrel. That and it looks cute more than anything.” Wolford reaches down and picks the gun off the bench. He shoulders it to see how it would feel if he were to try and actually shoot it. It’s much too small for him.

               “Hahaha, I see what you mean now, man that looks like a toy compared to you. Hey, wanna trade?” The wolf laughs while holding the firearm thats about a size too small for him.

               “No thank you, I don’t want to get laughed at. Man, have you seen Judy’s? I don’t see how they make those things so small! Its chambered in a weird round too, apparently the blockheads decided that Judy couldn’t handle what we’re flinging, which I think is odd, but anyways. That thing looks like it’ll fit in the palm of my paw. Hey, it probably _will_ fit in the palm of Snarlov’s paw, that polar bear is huge. We’ll have to get him to try that.” The wolf laughs at the thought.

               “Really? I haven’t seen Judy’s rifle at all, just her sidearms.”

               “Yeah, its small man, weird looking too. But anyways, go ahead and load up another mag, we’ll shoot a little more, but then I gotta go here soon and grab some food real fast, I haven’t eaten since lunch and it’s a little past… what?” Wolford flips his wrist over to look at his watch. “Yeah, 4:53, damn I’m hungry.” Wolford takes down the target and starts to pin up a new one while Nick loads a magazine. After a few moments of getting ready, the target is 50 yards away again and Nick is clicking the safety off on his gun. He starts shooting again, taking a few seconds in between each shot to be as accurate as possible. Wolford wants to assess Nicks abilities in the basics before moving onto complex things. The wolf still hasn’t figured out why Bogo asked him to do such a thing with him. Giving the fox extra training seems pointless, he thinks, he did great in the academy, top of his class. The only thing Wolford can come up with is Bogo wants him to be more prepared because he is the first Fox and there is so much riding on him in terms of public opinion. _Maybe he doesn’t want to make the same mistake he made with Hopps?_ Wolford thinks.

               The gray wolf watches the fox shoot. His form is good, and he is surprisingly accurate given his short time with handling firearms. Wolford loads the next magazine while he shoots, keeping an eye on him and checking his form. He slips his paw into his pocket and pulls out a dummy round. He loads It into the magazine and then loads another live round on top of it, hiding the dud within the real ammunition. Nick gets done with his current magazine and pulls it from his gun. Wolford tries to hide his smirk as he hands the magazine to Nick for him to shoot. He loads it unknowingly. He takes his time and fires off the first shot. The second, dummy round, chambers just as planned, unbeknownst to the fox. He aims for the target again and pulls the trigger. The gun makes a ‘click’ instead of a bang and the fox slightly flinches from the dud round. Wolford is right, Nick is anticipating the recoil, if ever so slightly.

               “Well damn Nick, you did good, you passed your first test.” Wolford smiles at him.

               “What?” Nick looks up and over his shoulder at the smiling wolf.

               “Clear that misfire.” Nick does as he’s told and manually works the bolt, ejecting the dummy round. The round smacks into the wall beside them and then falls onto their shooting bench. Nick looks at the fake orange cartridge laying on the table.

               “You hustled me! Ford! Weren’t you the one that told me that its forbidden to play practical jokes on the firing range!” Wolford laughs at this while picking up the dummy round.

               “Hahaha! No, Nick, this is training, but you passed pretty much, I’m honestly impressed. I did that to see if you were flinching. If you are, it can be hard to see because the recoil of the gun will cover it up. With the dummy round, there’s no recoil, so I’d be able to see the flinch. Now, if you knew it was a dummy, you might would have changed the way you shoot because you would have known the gun wasn’t actually going to go off.”

               “Oh… I see, um, thanks?”

               “Yeah for sure, you’re doing great. Next time we’ll just skip the boring stuff and set up some barricades so we can shoot from cover and work on moving and shooting, so get pumped. But I should get going, you clean up this mess and check in your rifle with Brock.”

               “Aren’t you supposed to keep me supervised with the rifles for right now?” Nick asks.

               “Ehhh, probably, I think, but what they don’t know don’t hurt them, right? And come on, you’re an adult just like everyone else. I’ve never seen anyone else have to be supervised while transporting _their_ rifle from range to storage. Just between you and me, I think it’s because you’re the first fox, but that’s a different conversation.” Wolford puts his paws on his hips and sighs. Wolford has heard many things said about the new fox officer, both good and bad. He is surprised that so many other officers at the ZPD are skeptical of Nick simply because he is a Fox. _Have they not learned their lesson since Judy?_ He thinks. Nick double-checks that the gun is unloaded and sets it down. The wolf takes his hearing protection off, since only he and the fox are at the range.

               “Really? They don’t trust me much, do they?” Nick does his best to keep his ears up straight and hide his disappointment.

               “I’m not sure. Don’t take this the wrong way but I think some higher ups from other districts aren’t too fond of you. Don’t worry about it too much though, you’re already proving yourself, like yesterday with that coyote.” Wolford smirks at Nick, getting a smile out of him.

               “Yeah, tackling him through that door was pretty nice. Won’t lie, it felt kinda good after what he called us.” Nick laughs

               “I don’t blame you; just don’t get too rowdy or they’ll try and sue you. But I’ll see you later sometime, just make sure your gun is clear, Brock will chew your tail off for that one.” Wolford says his goodbyes, picks up his range bag, and double checks to make sure he has everything. He heads out of the indoor range while stuffing his ear muffs into his bag. He makes straight for the cafeteria on the other side of the building, moving swiftly, mainly because he is hungry, but secondly because he needs to be on time for this new meeting. Wolford has been selected to be on a new case involving Night Howlers, or at least, that is what the very short meeting he had with Bogo was about. He hopes this doesn’t mark the return of the Night Howlers. _That would be bad, very, VERY bad,_ he thinks. _This is pretty high profile, guess’n I’ll be meeting the others assigned to this. Probably be seeing Higgins… I wonder if Bogo put Hopps on this? Probably, hmm I wonder how that will go? I’m sure they’ll split her and Wilde up then. They’ll need to keep us consolidated. That’s a shame, those two just seem to get along so well._ Wolford makes it around the last corner before having to cross the lobby of the ZPD headquarters. He looks across the lobby and spots Judy and Clawhauser at the front desk chatting. He walks up to them.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?”

               “Hey Ford! It’s going good, how was range time with Nick? Can he hit anything?” Judy asks with a half-smile, getting a stab in at her foxy partner. She’s sitting on the top of the receptionist desk, making her about eye level with the wolf. The desk is made for much taller mammals and for whatever reason, the ZPD never got around to adding steps for smaller mammals. This is an easy to overcome obstacle, however, by simply putting another chair on the other side of the desk where the receptionist would sit. It’s very easy for Judy to jump from the floor, to the chair, and then onto the desk. She does this often since she likes to chat with clawhauser in her free time, and today is no different.

               “It was good actually; he’s doing a lot better than I thought he would. I’d say he could give you a run for your money, Hopps.”

               “Oh, come on, there’s no way he’s that good!”

               “OH, so Nick’s going to show Judy up, huh?” Clawhauser weighs in on the gossip as well.

               “I don’t know, but he’s got the touch. I’d be careful Judy. We’ll be adding in movement next time around and working with cover. I’d actually like you to join us for that if you can, I think it’ll be fun. It’d probably help him if he watches someone else, give him more perspective, and you are partners, you should be training together anyways.”

               “I’ll take you up on that offer, just let me know when. I’ll be looking forward to showing him up.” Judy laughs.

               “I’d be careful with that; he might be the one showing _you_ up. But hey, I gotta run and get some food, I’ll see you two later, have a good afternoon.” With that, the grey wolf says his goodbyes and makes his way towards the cafeteria, hoping he has enough time to get food and get to the meeting without being late. Judy and Clawhauser watch the wolf make off hastily.

               “Well, you and Nick seem to be getting along really well now!” Clawhauser says before taking another bite of his donut.

               “Yeah, everything is going great! It’s good to finally have him here. Gosh, it felt like he was in the academy forever.”

               “I’m sure it’s nice having such a good friend around now, I know bunnies can get a little stir crazy if they don’t get one on one time with their bestie! I was worried you weren’t gonna make it bunny girl!” Clawhauser takes the last bite of his donut, finishing it off. He makes a content hum while licking his fingers.

               “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean!” Judy crosses her arms and looks at the cheetah accusingly.

               “I’ve heard bunnies can get weird if they don’t get to spend time with their friends, or if they don’t get to spend time with a significant other, or family or their brothers and sisters! And it’s especially bad if a rabbit feels secluded! I don’t see how you made it all this time, you’re one tough bunny.”

               “Nick is not family, Clawhauser! He is not my brother and he definitely isn’t my ‘significant other’! What is any of that supposed to even mean? I haven’t heard of anything like that ever before.” Judy shakes her head at the feline.

               “Suuuure Judy, deny it all you want, but your waaay happier now then you were before Nick got here!” Clawhauser smiles big at her. He learned in college some time ago that bunnies are one of the most social mammals in the world. He had taken some psychology classes while he was in college and found that he really took a liking to them and that he remembers most things from them. In these classes they studied how mammals behaved and how different species behaved differently between one another. He remembers learning that rabbits are extremely social mammals and could be easily susceptible to solitude and loneliness. This made sense to clawhauser. From what he read in his textbooks it is extremely important for rabbits, in particular, to feel a sense of support or community with family, friends and loved ones. This is one of the reasons rabbits have such massive families, at least the textbooks had told him.

               While at home with family, they all support one another and are very tightknit. The brothers and sisters, especially from the same litter, will become very close, and spend a large amount of time with one another. This is their support structure when younger. As rabbits grow older and gradually become independent, strong friendships will usually fill the void if they are away from family. This phase usually lasts until a mate is found, for the most part. Friendship is similar to family in that it fills the need to feel close to another mammal. Rabbits are often physically very close with their good friends, more so then most other species. One book, Clawhauser recalls, claimed that some stereotypes about rabbits are true, such as sleeping with their closest friends or sleeping in piles, basically, with their siblings, especially when younger. The cheetah really doubts this to be true. The book had also gone on to claim that rabbits are more likely to have open relationships, particularly in the early dating phase, when it isn’t clear wither the pair will get along or not. It said it is commonplace for rabbits to be promiscuous in terms of their sexual partners. The more clawhauser had got to know rabbits throughout his life showed that that really is just a fake stereotype, as far as he can tell with Judy at least. He honestly didn’t know that many rabbits. However, Judy had mentioned that her and her litter siblings did share rooms when they were younger, it is most practical that way, she explained; but she didn’t say if they shared beds or not. He is quite curious, there culture and habits seem so different from what cheetahs do, the classes had led him to believe. He has never built up the courage to ask her directly though. He wonders if he can pull any of this information out of Nick, he is Judy's best friend after all.

Unfortunately, the psychology books Clawhauser has read didn’t go into why rabbits are that way, as far as he can remember. Considering that they didn't do that for any of the other species they learned about either, it was probably too in-depth for the classes he took. For the most part, what he learned about rabbits in his classes doesn’t quite hold true with Judy anyways. She was away from family for her first year at the ZPD and didn’t seem to be affected by it, although she was quick to make friends with most officers. The really odd thing is Judy’s dating life seems to be nonexistent as far as the cheetah can tell. _I wonder if Judy is just good at keeping secrets… I bet I could get that information from Nick!_ The cheetah internally squeals at the thought of getting gossip from Nick. That is, if Nick and Judy are as good friends as they seem to be. It is a bit odd, them being a Rabbit and Fox after all. He wonders how this will work. In the little they went over foxes in his classes; he remembers them being extremely shut-in compared to other mammals. They make friends and have families, of course, but they are nowhere near as touchy-feely as rabbits. They have a fairly large personal space bubble as well. He desperately hopes this doesn't cause a problem between his favorite Rabbit and Fox pair. That would just be awful.

               “Of course I’m happier with Nick being here! He’s my friend and it took a lot of work for him to get here, I’m simply happy he made it. Not everything has to do with me being a rabbit!” Judy grumbles, more jokingly then serious. She likes the cheetah, but sometimes he can come up with the most ridiculous things.

               “Suuuure Judy. You can deny it all you want, but I know Nick is your bestie and you just can’t live without him.” The rabbit shakes her head again and turns away to hide her slight blush. He is right about one thing, at least, she does consider Nick to be her ‘bestie’. It is hard not to, thinking about everything they have been through. She also finds herself enjoying his company much more than she thought she would. Thinking about Nick reminds her of her original goal in coming to see clawhauser.

               “You are so ridiculous sometimes, you know that?”

               “Oh, but you love me for it!” Clawhauser gives a little squeal. He then rummages through his snack supplies, looking for something else to eat. There is a long pause while Judy thinks about how best to ask her question.

 “Hey Clawhauser, can I ask you for some advice?” Judy nervously swings her legs back and forth off the side of the desk. She doesn’t know why she feels so nervous about this particular topic. She hopes she’s not making a mistake by asking him for some advice. She trusts him, to a certain extent. He often lets things slip he isn’t supposed to, and what she is about to ask she desperately hopes isn’t actually as weird as she thinks it is. She looks over at him.

“What is it Jude? Something wrong? Oh wait, I know that face! Is it boy trouble?” Judy winces at his conclusion. It is somehow oddly accurate in the worst way. She’s impressed with how well the cheetah can read her despite knowing so little context to the situation. This only makes things worse because the cheetah seems as if he is about to explode.

“WAIT!? I was right? Oooooooh!” Clawhauser’s paws come up to cup his cheeks and his tail becomes rigid as it shoots straight out behind him. “So, who’s the lucky Buck, mmh? Don’t think you’ve told me about him!”

               “What!? NO! listen, it’s not a Buck…” there is an awkward pause as Judy searches for the right words.

               “…A doe?” Clawhauser quarks up an eyebrow at her dubiously.

               “What? Nonononono! its Nick.” Clawhauser’s face goes from confused to lighting up like a flare in a millisecond. His paws smack down onto the table, bracing himself. His eyes grow as big as she has ever seen them. Judy quickly recovers from her slight blunder, waving her paws in the air as if it would stop his thoughts.

“Clawhauser! No! Nothing like that, that’s ridiculous, he’s a fox, listen! I wanted to take him out to eat somewhere nice for like a _“Hey, you’re my friend and thanks for putting yourself through the academy because I wanted you to be my partner”_ kinda thing. BUT Wolford and some other guys already invited us out tonight to celebrate, which is fine and fun and all, but I wanted to go out with just me and Nick, but I don’t want it to seem weird and I don’t know where to go either! And this isn’t weird, is it? I mean I can go out with my friend, right? It’s not weird that it’ll just be a fox and a bunny, right? Sometimes when Wolford and I were out I couldn’t tell if mammals were looking at us because they recognized me or if it was weird because I’m a rabbit and he’s a Wolf and we were at the bar together and I don’t wanna do that to Nick I mean he’s already got so many things going on and I don’t want to inadvertently put more pressure on him just-because-I-wanttoaskhimouttodinne-.”

“Judy! Slow down! Where’s the fire, gosh are you ok?” Clawhauser holds his paws out in front of him, prompting a stop to the rambling rabbit. She stops and stares at him, her nose twitching and ears laid back behind her head.

“Judy, what is going on? Are you ok?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m fine, everything is fine, this is fine.”

“Are you sure? You seem like you’re wound up like a spring! Is something wrong with Nick?” Clawhauser’s face takes on a large amount of concern as he studies her.

“No… it’s just…” Judy pauses to search her mind for some reasonable explanation to her anxiety. “Bogo’s got us doing some extra work for a case, me and Nick and some others, and it just worries me, I guess. I want him to do good and there’s a lot of pressure with us being the first of our kind, especially with Nick being a fox and all.” That explanation seems to satisfy not only the cheetah but also the rabbit herself. It is a good explanation, one that’s rooted in reality; the case certainly does put stress on her, albeit to a small extent, she thinks. She sweeps her other wandering thoughts about her foxy partner under the rug and focuses her attention on getting help with her definitely-not-a-date idea with Nick.

“Oh, Bogo’s already got you working extra? But Nick Is so new, I mean, he’s still the newest in terms of beat cops.”

“Yeah it’s pretty stressful, just don’t mention the case, we’re not supposed to talk about it yet.”

“Oh, you can count on me to keep quiet, Judy.” She highly doubts this, but lets the cheetah continue. “But are you sure you’re ok? you know you can talk to me, right?”

“Yes, I know, thank you. But you don’t think it’s weird?”

“That what’s weird?” Judy sighs at having to ask her possibly embarrassing question again.

“That I want to ask Nick out to a nice dinner to celebrate him passing the academy!” The cheetah pauses for a second. That sounds a lot like a date. He shakes his head of the thought and answers, trying to console his friend.

“Oh, of course not! Why would that be weird?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ford already invited us all out to Tails’n’Drink to celebrate the same thing. And also, if me and Nick went out it would just be a rabbit and a fox, you know?” Judy shrugs her shoulders. Saying it out loud makes all her worrying simply sound ridiculous. She feels silly now and wonders why it was even a problem in the first place. Clawhauser looks knowingly at the rabbit. His psychology classes seemed to be right. Rabbits really are possessive of their best friends.

“It’ll be fine. Nick is your best friend, who cares if Ford already asked everyone out? And I think it’s really sweet you want to take Nick out to celebrate! I’m sure he’ll really enjoy that. Where are you gonna take him?” Clawhauser leans in towards her, fully absorbed into the conversation.

“Well, that’s one of the things I wanted to ask you. I don’t want it to be a bar and I want it to be somewhere Nick can get whatever he wants, so I guess a mainly predator restaurant? But I don’t know of any good predator restaurants. I can look them up, but I won’t know any of the differences or, I mean, I don’t even know what Foxes like to eat, really. Even if I find a good place, I’m not sure that’ll even turn out ok because I don’t think I’m going to be able to get anything for me to eat.” Judy sighs. She looks at clawhauser to find his face oddly unreadable.

“Oh, I think I know of a great place! I’ve been there before.”

               “Wait really? that’s great! What’s it called? And will I be able to get something to eat there too?”

               “It’s called the Red Fawn, it’s up near the rainforest district. And I think you’ll be able to get something you’d like. They have a really wide range of foods. I think they’ll be able to fix up a salad for the one and only hero bunny cop!” Clawhauser tries to hold in his excitement. The Red Fawn is renowned for its great predator-oriented food but its also a tremendously wonderful place for couples to go on dates. Not that he thinks Nick and Judy are dating, of course, but Judy could use to go on a ‘date.’ _Even if that isn’t what’s actually going on… And even if Judy doesn’t know what’s happening. OOhhh this is going to be so much fun!_ He thinks.

Judy pauses for a moment, thinking about the Red Fawn. _Have I heard of that name somewhere before?_ She searches her memory for the name. She swears she’s heard it somewhere before. _Someone I didn’t like had gone there? No, that doesn’t sound right, I’ve heard that name from somewhere before though… Right?_

               “Are you sure that’s a good place to go?” She asks.

               “Definitely, trust me Judy, I won’t steer you wrong here. The food is great, Nick will love it.”

“Ok ok, I trust you. I’ll try and ask him this afternoon then.” Judy smiles and nods her head in agreement with herself, happy that she can finally get this plan into action and put her pointless worrying behind her.

               “Oh, I think you’ll have to call and get a reservation first. It might be a week before you can go.”

               “Wait really? it’s that fancy? …Are you sure this isn’t too much? I don’t want to weird him out or something...”

               “Of course not, Judy. You are way overthinking this. Look, you want to have a nice friendly dinner with Nick, right? And you haven’t been out in forever and you work all the time. The only times I’ve heard of you going out for fun is with Ford and Fangmeyer, and that’s usually just some bar or something that they want to go to. Come on, treat yourself girl! You work so hard; you need a break too. And I’m sure Nick would like to celebrate with you.”

               “Hmm.” Judy sighs. Clawhauser is right, she thinks. _I’m worrying for no good reason_. She chalks it up to simply being stressed about Nick being new and the high-profile case they just got put on. “You’re right. Should I just call in? and I think I’ll just surprise him with it, see if he can guess what we’re doing.”

               “There you go! Have some fun with it. And me and Hugo called in, that was easiest. There’s not an official dress code but it is nicer, so dress up a little. Ooooh, Hey! What do you think Nick will look like dressed up?”

               “Ha! I think the question is ‘IF I can get him to dress up.’ He wears these awful Hawaiian shirts with a tie!” Judy giggles at the thought of him going to a fancy place like that.

               “Wait really? that’s awful. You think you’ll be able to get him into something better?”

               “I think so, we’ll have to wait and see. I wonder what he would look like too.” She places her paw on her chin in thought, trying to imagine Nick in a nice outfit. She can’t.

               “I think he would look great in a suit!”

               “Oh, I don’t think we’re going to get him into a suit!” Judy laughs. “I'm not sure I'll even be able to get him int-”

               “Well now, are you talking about me behind my tail, Carrots?” Nick’s voice startles the rabbit and she quickly turns to look for him. She doesn’t see anything and does a double take, looking down off the top of the receptionist desk to the floor to see him standing there. She stares at him a moment, hoping that he hasn’t been here long enough to hear her conversation.

               “Nick! what are you doing here?” Judy says frantically. The fox smirks at her, swishing his tail. _So, she really was talking about me, I wonder what about?_

“I just got done at the range with Wolford, so I decided to kill some time here before we gotta go.”

               “Before we have to go?” Judy asks in confusion.

               “Yeah, remember we gotta meet with Buffalo butt!” Her ears shoot straight up to attention. _Have I really been talking this long?_ She was so caught up with Clawhauser talking about Nick she lost track of time. “Don’t worry, we got a few minutes still.” The fox laughs at the rabbit.

               “We need to be a few minutes early! Come on!” Judy swivels around on the desk, turning around. She pushes off with her paws, easily scooting herself off the desk. She gracefully lands on the ground behind the desk and bounds around it, taking a quick second to look behind her. Nick casually walks behind her, his paws in his pockets. She grumbles at him and waves her paw to make him move faster as they travel towards the bullpen.

               A few moments later, Nick and Judy walk briskly into the room. They are about 5 minutes early, so Nick is ok with taking his time, but Judy insists on getting there as soon as possible. She does not want to be late under any circumstances, especially for this particular meeting. Opening the door to the bullpen, they are met with an odd silence, which is concerning. Usually the room is full of the excited energy before a shift, but just a few officers are sitting in the room and none of them are making much noise at all. They’re all waiting to see who is or isn’t picked for the ‘non existing case’. Judy looks around the room and sees some faces she expected. Higgins and Fangmeyer are sitting beside each other. She smiles at them as she enters the room. Fangmeyer returns her gesture with a small flip of his paw and Higgins gives a slight smile at her, before skewing his ears and gaining a shocked expression. His eyes lock onto the fox trailing behind her. He was not expecting to see him here. The look goes unnoticed by Judy as she turns her attention to getting herself into hers and Nicks chair. She jumps up into it with ease, followed by Nick. They get situated in their chair, standing on the seat so their heads stick over the table, allowing them to actually see what’s going on. An odd silence descends on the room.

Officer should be talking amongst one another about this or that or laughing loudly or even howling. Especially howling; and especially when Bogo enters the room. However, the atmosphere of the room is pensive now. The first time she had entered the bullpen it was so loud it had almost frightened her. Now the opposite seems to be true with the deafening silence, this causes the rabbit to become more nervous than she did on her first day. The case is on everyone’s minds, and it isn’t happy thoughts the mammals are having. Judy looks over at him and he looks back at her. They exchange glances before looking straight ahead, playing the waiting game like the other officers.

Wolford hurries into the room, just one minute before the scheduled meeting time. He scans the room quickly, first seeing Fangmeyer and Higgins. He smiles and gives a nod to them. He then sees Snarlov in the second row, taking advantage of one of the few seats that can support a polar bear in the room. Lastly his eyes flick over to the two smallest officers on the force, Hopps and Wilde. He stares at them for a second. He lets a fair amount of surprise cover his face before he can get it under control. He definitely did not expect to see Wilde here. After a moment of confusion facts slowly start to fall in to place. This must be the reason Bogo is asking him to give Nick extra training and range time.

Wolford gets to his usual second row seat and sits down, doing his best not to stare at Judy and Nick. He can see Judy being on the case. He almost expected it really, she is a great cop, but Nick on the other paw is a total unknown. He tries not to make a face while thinking why Bogo would put him on such a high-profile case so early in his career. The chief obviously things Nick needs extra training, or he wouldn’t have asked him to do it. This situation is oddly perplexing, Wolford thinks. He decides to keep his mouth shut. The decision isn't up to him and Nick is shaping up to be a great officer anyways. A few more moments pass, and just one minute after the scheduled meeting time, the door to the bullpen opens once again.

Chief Bogo enters the room. His massive size easily dwarfs everyone in the bullpen except the polar bear Snarlov. He walks across the room to stand behind his podium while setting a fairly large stack of files on top of it. The usually full bullpen is mostly empty, except for a few mammals, ones that he carefully picked. This is the team that is meant to go about investigating the “case” of the newly discovered drug supposedly out on the streets. However, the low number of accounts are confusing, and the effects of it are still unclear. That is exactly the reason each officer was carefully picked. Bogo looks out over the officers at his disposal. Two wolves, a tiger, a polar bear and… a rabbit and a Fox. He hopes he hasn’t made a mistake letting the Fox on this case. Wilde was a difficult choice to pick than the other officers.

Officer Hopps was an easy choice. She graduated top of her class and not only that, has proved herself time and time again. She was crucially involved in solving the biggest cases the ZPD has dealt with. She is smart, quick, levelheaded under extreme stress and can connect the dots when need be. She shows the most determination of any officer he has ever seen. She just will not stop. Even when she said she would, and turned in her badge, she still kept working and came back months later to finish the job, officially or not, it didn't matter. Bogo likes that, unhinged determination to get to the truth. Not stopping until every stone is overturned is a rare trait to have. Her roguish tendencies do pose a problem, but at the same time, sometimes authority needed to be challenged or rules bent in order to accomplish a task. As much as Bogo hates to agree with it, the old saying ‘rules are meant to be broken’ is true, even for the police. _Sometimes_ , he thinks. He always tacks that condition at the end of that saying whenever it comes to mind. Her prior involvement and experience with night howlers was just the cherry on top.

While Hopps is quick on her paws, she lacks brute strength, but Bogo accounted for this. He made sure to try and cover all his bases. Snarlov, one of the few Polar bears in Precinct 1 was his next pick. Brute strength is simply an understatement. Weighing in at roughly 1,000 pounds and coupled with his experiences at paw to paw combat, as he often covers the rear door on a raid, he is one of the most physically intimidating ZPD members.

Wolford shows great marksmanship skill’s, and at his time of graduating the academy was top of his class in terms of rifles. The gray wolf also has a lot of experience working across districts, since he originally came from Precinct 3. Higgins and Fangmeyer have worked with narcotics for almost the start of their careers. Judging what this case is shaping up to be, narcotics is likely going to be the main aspect, they made sense to be part of the unit. Higgins has helped make many drug busts happen, not to mention his work with following drug-running operations.

What concerns Bogo the most is the Fox. Officer Wilde is a complete wild card. _Mind the pun_ , Bogo thinks. He looks great on paper; everything says he will be great. The perfect cop even, barring his not so legal background, but he hasn’t had any real time on the clock, as it were. Bogo is unsure of his decision. He worries that Nick isn’t ready for this. Hasn’t had enough experience. Hasn’t had enough field work. He worries that his decision will off put his other officers. He especially worries about that. In terms of seniority, Officer Hopps is low on the totem pole, let alone Officer Wilde. The one thing that Wilde has more than everyone else is first paw experience with Night Howlers. Bogo sighs, hoping he has made the right decision.

               “I’ve gathered you here to be a part of a small… Investigative force, unit, group, team, whatever you want to call it. The purpose of this unit is to be ready to go in the event that Night Howlers become an immediate threat again. While part of this unit, you will be investigating this ‘case’. However, this is not an official investigation. What we’re dealing with is not currently public, and we will keep it that way. I do not want to start a panic. The media does not need to stir the pot with headlines about Night Howlers. That being so, we will not discuss this unofficial investigation outside of this unit, under any circumstances unless otherwise permitted by me, understood?” Bogo pauses to stare at his Officers. They all nod in agreement. Higgins raises his paw to ask a question.

               “Higgins.” Bogo looks at the white wolf.

               “Everyone in this room is going to be investigating this case? All of our members are currently present?”

               “Yes, unless one of you would like to be removed from it, which I believe we covered that when I first met with you individually.” Bogo eyes the wolf, figuring his line of questioning has ulterior motives. The Buffalo wonders if his decision to add Nick onto the team is really coming into question this quickly.

               “No, I would like to stay.” Higgins lowers his paw and keeps his eyes forward.

               “Anything else we need to get out of the way?” Bogo eyes the room. The polar bear, tiger, two wolves, fox and rabbit all sit still, awaiting further instruction. A moment passes before Bogo continues.

               “About 6 months ago, talk of a new drug surfaced in online forums. From what our cybercrime division saw, it seems at first it was all talk, no real drug existed, but we cannot be certain. Recently, roughly a month ago now, precinct 3 picked up our first documented case of the drug. You all know all of this already. So far, we have no other documented cases of it. That being said, our unit will focus our resources on precinct 1 until otherwise stated. All other precincts have assembled their own units of professionals and are doing the same as we are. Precinct 3 has sent a case file, of sorts, to each unit. I made copies accordingly and would like you to read over them before we meet next time.” Bogo picks the stack of files off the top of the podium. He walks past the officer, handing them their respective folder. Snarlov’s folder is comically large compared to Nick’s and Judy’s. The rest are the same size, since Higgins, Wolford and Fangmeyer are all of relative size. Bogo walks back to his podium and continues.

               “Currently, we don’t know how the drug works and we don’t know who’s making it. Precinct 3 guess is that it comes from a drug running group based in the rainforest district simply because that is where our first documented encounter with the substance came from. They're currently working a very lose lead on where our patient 0 got the drug from in the first place. Other than that, we have no other information to further the investigation, unless one of you have an idea or another group comes up with something.” Bogo places his hoofs on the podium, waiting to see what his team comes up with. Higgins raises his paw and Bogo nods towards him.

               “Do we know the side effects or what the drug does to mammals? do we know what kind of symptoms were looking for?”

               “Given the mystery surrounding the name of the substance and given it has multiple ‘first paw’ accounts of different effects, we cannot be certain. Precinct 3 did describe more… Animalistic tendencies of the suspect they apprehended that tested positive for the night howlers. There is more information on that in the case file I have handed out.”

               “Do we know how the suspect that precinct 3 nabbed took the drug?” Wolford doesn’t bother with paw raising and instead simply blurts out his question.

               “He claims he ate it, which is… Interesting, to say the least. We’re wondering if it wasn't meant to be injected instead.” Bogo answers.

               “Do we know chemically what the drug is made up of? Or did we run any test of the mammal that tested positive for Night Howlers to try and determine anything?” Bogo gives a small smile at the rabbit. Her ability to suck all relevant information out of a crime scene is uncanny.

               “Yes Hopps, we immediately placed him under medical supervision and took him to a hospital. Interestingly enough, his body seemed to rid itself of the drug, similar to marijuana, it seemed. There is a detailed medical report in the packet I gave everyone.”

               “What species was the suspect?” Higgins asks.

“A gray fox.” The room grows quiet at Bogo’s answer. Everyone resists the urge to look at the only fox officer. Judy, on the other paw, can’t help but turn and look at her partner, her heart dropping at the adverse circumstances. She studies him. It seems to not bother him as he keeps looking forward deep in thought. After a moment, Nick speaks.

               “The cybercrime division, were they able to tell what species of mammal the users were on the websites discussing the drug?” Bogo raises an eyebrow at this, wondering where the fox is going with it.

               “I’m not sure, we have copies of some of the conversations in the packets. Some users might have mentioned it, others might not have. Either way, we can't be sure if they are even telling the truth on the website or not, let alone what species they are. Why do you ask?”

               “I find it interesting that a predator would take the drug at all, given what's in it. I know mammals that take drugs aren’t too bright to begin with, of course, but even the stupid should know taking a drug filled with Night howlers should be suicide, especially if you’re a predator. I find it interesting that patient zero is a predator and not prey.” The room fills with an odd silence as everyone thinks about the line of thinking the Fox came up with.

               “That may be so, but obviously that must not be the case, they still took it.” Bogo answers off the top of his head, challenging Nick’s line of thought.

               “That’s true, which brings me to my next conclusion. I see this going one of two ways. The fox that took the drug had to have some reason to believe the drug wouldn’t make him completely savage. Well at least not permanently. Assuming he wasn't insane to begin with and assuming he knew what the drug was. So, either the Fox that took it didn't know what it was…” Nick pauses, thinking about the situation. “Or, the dealer that sold it to him was a predator.”

               “How do you figure that? How do those two things correlate at all?” Higgins asks in disbelief, letting air flood out of his nose in an audible huff.

               “I’m just putting myself in his perspective. Think about it. If I know what kind of drug I'm buying, I wouldn’t dare buy it from prey. Night howlers make predators go crazy, we also know that It can do it to pray as well, but that’s beside the point. If I’m a predator buying a drug that could make me go savage, I wouldn’t dare buy it from prey. Being specie-ist goes both ways, there are plenty of predators who won’t trust a prey mammal for a second, let alone buying a possibly lethal drug for them. So, if I’m going to buy it, I’m going to want to feel safe or at least feel like I’m buying it from someone I can trust, the only thing I can really come up with that would make me trust the dealer is if he was a predator too… It just seems really odd that patient zero is a predator, that’s the best explanation I can come up with.”

               “I think that’s pretty smart. While it’s not a lead, really, it’s the best information we got to go on.” Snarlov gives his input from the second row.

               “I’ll let the other precincts know that. At the very least, I think you’re right about it being odd that patient zero is a predator. Will see if the other precincts can come up with anything else.” Judy looks over at Nick. She is pretty impressed with Nick’s line of thinking. She had never considered questioning the motives of drug dealers or buyers based off of their species.

               “Is there anything that we can actually begin working on?” Higgins asks with disdain. Bogo stares at the wolf, trying to decide how best to deal with him.

               “Yes actually, the reason for this meeting is to start handing out assignments for this case. Snarlov and Fangmeyer. You two will be meeting with Precinct 3 to discuss a possible raid in the works. Details in your packet. If Precinct 3 is right will be able to get our paws on some of this drug. In the meantime, Higgins and Wolford, you two will be going over all the details in the statement our patient zero gave us. He wouldn’t say much, and there was only so much we could charge him for as well, so we couldn’t pressure him that way. Higgins, you’ve done a lot with narcotics in the past, I want you to try and connect some dots or pull from past investigations we've done and see if anything turns up. I expect you two to be using the files we have on paw. Hopps, Wilde, I want you two to go over the copy of the forms and online conversations and see if we can pull anything from that. I know that’s very vague, but this is all we have at the moment to go on. I also want you to visit the cybercrime division and see if they have anything new. Ask them about the species of the users, they might have information that they think isn’t important but actually is. Any questions?” Bogo looks from officer to officer. Everyone nods in agreement, knowing their given task.

               “Ok sense there is no questions, will meet again next week, same time, same place. The other precincts are doing the same as us so hopefully they will dig up something as well and will get a real lead other than just hearsay. Dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!   
> Last chapter, a guest on FF-net said: “I wonder if we will learn about Judy's past date...” To answer your question, yes! You will learn more, I don’t want to give too much away but it is somewhat important to the way Judy will perceive things. Although it will take a bit before this gets brought back up.  
> Another guest comment left some time ago, said: “…. Will Nick meet LOTSofWOLF in real life too? When he does, will the so called "LOX-Fox" try to ruin it?” This is actually something I hadn’t really considered. One of the points of that conversation was to show the reader more of my version of the Zootopia world, but the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. I think I might work this in, to be decided. Sorry it took so long to address this review.
> 
> Thank you very much for taking the time to review/ask questions/comment. I will keep addressing guest reviews at the end of the next chapter after the review has been made. I will do my best to address user reviews with a PM (or if I think everyone should know the answer to the user review, I’ll post it at the end of the chapter as well.) Thanks to all of my readers! Next chapter should come out the first of Next month, so June 1st. We’re also getting close to summer (At least for myself) so an accelerated updated schedule should be in the works, hopefully. I have the loose goal of getting this fic done over the summer. Hope to see you next time!  
> Also! Very sorry for the late update. I got very busy at the end of the semester and this chapter turned out the be very difficult and I didn’t want to do a shitty job just to stay on schedule. Honestly, I'm still not very satisfied with a few parts in it but so be it. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
> 
> Special thanks to my friends: Karl and Abby for helping me with plot and spelling/grammar. Also a huge thanks to my friend Olchar for helping out as well. He literally helped with everything!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More on the way!


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